The Cherry Tangle
by monshari
Summary: In a world where misery is golden, New York's highest elites strive for one thing only—the top of the food chain. But when the popular kids suddenly become the popular gay kids, and when the tiny freshmen freaks start dating the highest of the high, the rules are twisted—just like a cherry stem. ALL HUMAN/AU [SHORT HIATUS]
1. Tangled In My Spotlight

_A/N:_ **This story is totally AU, all human, blah, blah, blah. Kay'? Nothing belongs to me except the plot and any OCs. Um...what else? Oh! Rating to change to M, for... M**alec** ;) Enjoy all!**

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**FULL SUMMARY: **Set in the dead center of limelight, New York's highest elites strive for one thing only—the top of the food chain. So when the popular kids suddenly become the popular gay kids, and when the tiny freshmen freaks start dating the highest of the high, the rules are twisted—just like a cherry stem.

_Jace Herondale_: The rich, popular, golden boy who gets every girl he wants, parties until the late hours of the night, can hold all the alcohol, and still be bright and, well, golden, in the morning. Until a certain red head shows up and starts messing with his sanity.

_Simon Lewis_: The nerd, the geek, the loser, the queer, the idiot, the freak. All things that he's been called, but yet he knows where his true friends lie. Although fate doesn't seem to think so when the girl he begins to love may or may not be taken from him.

_Alec Lightwood_: Haunted by his past and scars, he's the closeted swim star that girls swoon over. Of course, he doesn't hold interest in them as much as his best friend...

_Magnus Bane_: The bright, glittery, bisexual, and eccentric fashionista of Alicante Academy. The one who may seem the most put together though, the one who may seem to know himself better than anyone, always has the darkest and most hidden past. And the last thing he needs to fall in love with the one person who has been there for him the entire time.

**So now**, in a world set of prejudice and homophobia, best friends since the fifth grade, they enter their final year—the last year to make things right, fall in love with the right person, and set their future. But really, how many truly succeed that journey?

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**CHAPTER ONE: _Tangled In My Spotlight_**_  
_

Alicante Academy—the prime image of limelight and social domination, prep and pink, goth and black, designers and brand names. The building as well was not at all subtle, as it towered in the heart of Manhattan. Built completely from polished black and silver brick, it rose three stories tall and was shaped like a cube, except for the east wing, which cut off at the second floor, lining the roof with white granite—waterproof, of course. The entire campus was locked inside a wrought iron gate, where roses and various types of ivy weaved themselves into the metal due to the years lack of trimming.

To any socialite or board member, this was the choice education center, offering all the main core subjects which would in later years branch off into advanced units and certain selected areas. The entire third floor alone was dedicated to the arts and drama program, and the football field behind was large enough to fit almost twenty thousand people.

But—to anyone who walked the halls it was a literal hell. Well, not for the groups of jocks and cheerleaders, and especially not the student council—which was really just an excuse to get together and drink—but the to the average kids who were there on scholarships, or the people whose parents had the money to do whatever the hell they want to do with them, it was torture. There was constant teasing, bulling, shoving into lockers, and _damn_, if you though you didn't know every swear word in the book—well; now you do.

Though for now, all of that was ignored and forgotten. Summer was over and all the exotic vacations had definitely washed off on the pavement, as the girls were back in new Prada and Dior, new fake and real tans alike, new cars, and new boyfriends—all whom which had strange last names. The freshmen were just that—fresh—and the senior guys watched them with hungry expression trying to figure out which were the whores and which were the freaks. Screams of excitement could be heard from every corner of New York City as old friends embraced and gushed; the awkwardness from the new kids could be felt from the skylines as they quietly entered the imitating structure.

The inside of the building was just as exquisite as the outside. The floors were a glossy white stone, with tiny black tiles overlapping every few feet. Half of the walls were a cream plaster and the other half were clear glass, revealing the brightened green grass on the lawn outside. But really, the ceiling was the most impressive. Towering above the student's heads, the ceiling was made from tight grey wires, interconnecting at every millimeter, creating a hard platform that held the floor above it. Bright lights hung from metal beams that crossed over each other, giving a modern art feel to the halls.

The lockers that lined the walls alternated monotones; some were yellow, others tan, orange, brown, or white. To the sides of the hallways, in between locker sets there were artfully placed pewter vases holding long-stemmed ivory flowers. Just past the main entrance hall the ceiling opened up to reveal a perfect blue sky, spotted with poofy clouds to accompany the rare but memorable ninety degree weather. Ivy and odd purple flowers hung low on iron baskets from tall hallow glass columns that were placed randomly around the courtyard and the floor was made up of overlapping squares of brushed steal, unlike the normal concrete, grass and trees; slender steel beams arched overhead, wrapped with ropes of tiny white lights, which evidently made up the balconies from the higher floors. A single ornate wrought spiraling staircase led to the second floor, and then up to the third—which gave a stunning view of the city.

The school itself, as a structure, not a home, was a powerful place, which gave off the feel of authority and meekness all in the same. The coloring, the materials, and the lighting instantly let the younglings know that you either followed the rules of the council and clave, or you got out, and stayed out—that there was no in between. You either fit or you didn't. Your life was a story, or a blank page. If you didn't fit, you pretended that you did, so that you didn't have to face the life of the one's who couldn't get out, who had to endure mortal humiliation every single day.

Some of them, the ones who can't get out, end up in a place of dark telling; they fall down holes to shattered wonderlands, in where the light always misses them, even when they want to shine.

But some of them, the ones who do shine, get out anyways, fulfilling lives beyond high school immaturities. They shine in their own way.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Jace Herondale-Lightwood stepped from his silver One-77 Aston Martin wearing light-wash jeans and a white v-neck. He pulled his sunglasses over his head, into his blond hair, and squinted against the harsh sunlight, inspecting the academy with distaste.

He'd been in this city for his entire seventeen years, living his life drowning in spotlight. He was use to getting what he wanted and being popular. Maybe that wasn't want he wanted, but he was lucky to be pulled in with the sea instead of being left out in the sun to crackle and dry. Still, he'd rather be anywhere but here. It was kind of a contradiction, he thought. He was glad he wasn't an outsider, but didn't particularly like being on the inside either.

_At least it's only one more year_, he thought, _nine more months of this fucking paradox of a life_.

With his backpack slung over one shoulder, he walked confidently to the gates. It was impossible not to notice the stares and giggles he was getting from the girls. Some were freshmen—the easy and wholehearted ones, not aware of the heartbreak they were going to encounter, some were other seniors who've been obsessed with him since he was a starter at Alicante, the ones who stalked his twitter and were very well aware of the heart shattering that seemed to follow him. But in the end they were all the same, even if they gave their best efforts to get him. Jace wasn't an idiot. He knew that all they wanted was his body, something to show off to their friends like a trophy—something that said, "I'm hot and I know it". Because if you were close to him to were part of the 'in crowd'. You were respected by the council and given a seat in the monarchy.

Not that it wasn't flattering. Like previously said, Jace had grown up with the attention. He was used to it now; he liked sinking in limelight.

Noise echoed loudly in Jace's ears as he walked past the marble door and into the academy. He quickly glanced down at his schedule to find his locker number. It was in the science wing. The science wing always smelt like dead animals; you could feel the ghosts of dissected frogs starring at you. He'd had a science wing locker when he was a freshman and had had a particularly unpleasant encounter with a rat in his locker. A dead one—soaked in chemicals that were meant to preserve the small creature from rotting.

The second Jace turned the corner from the front hallways where the office was, he was bombarded with people, practically trampled. He could see thin arms sticking out of the crowd carrying pieces of torn paper with ink splattered hastily on them shaping numbers. He heard the cries asking him how his summer was, who he hooked up with, if it was true that he'd gotten drunk with Robert Pattinson in Malta. This was normal, he supposed, since it happened every year. He was a people person, and people persons were expected to enjoy being around people, so that's what people did—they clung to him hoping to soak up some of his golden skin and natural popularity that came with his looks. Usually in these situations, he smiled and held his head, taking all the numbers that were put out—that's what he did this time as well.

One voice though stood out particularly. "Shove it, freshmen! Out of the way!"A girl popped out of the crowd, just about as fake as they got, and grabbed his wrist, pulling him from the mob. She pulled him a few feet until the crowd started to disperse.

"_Thank you_," said Jace once they were away from the lot of students, making their way to the science wing. "I've become oddly claustrophobic over the summer." He crossed his arms, keeping a thumb under the strap of his bag.

"It's not a problem." Camille said with a grin. "Besides, I have something I need to talk to you about—about Magnus,"

Camille was one of _those_ girls; platinum blonde hair (from a bottle), icy blue eyes that could cut you into shards with just a glance, double D's filling Chantelle lingerie, and ignoring her head, held not a single hair on her body.

He swore under his breath.

The science wing was almost deserted with only a few students standing around, trying to either find a locker or a teacher (the smell, like noted, was awful—even before the year had begun), and the lights were visibly dimmer. However, the glass wall on the opposite side of the hall helped to bring in a bit more scintillation.

"What about Magnus?" Jace asked, tentatively pulling the latch on the bright yellow locker, not wanting to be surprised with yet another creature. Camille crossed her long legs and leaned against the metal containers next to him, watching him with amusement.

Camille had always found his sarcastic hesitation solacing. It was something she knew would always be in his enticing personality—the way he would bite his lip as if having to think when all he wants to do pounce, or flipping to the end of a book to make sure it has a happy ending.

"Do you remember last fall?" Camille asked. "When Magnus applied for the student intern scholarship at _Cherrytree Enterprises?_"

Jace grunted an answer of acknowledgement, and Camille pierced her lips to one side. "Well, the—_what are you doing_?"

Jace ran a finger down the inside wall of his body-length locker, and just as he expected, it came back with fine dust covering the tip. He frowned. "These lockers haven't been cleaned in three months. How can they expect _anybody_—hell, even Lewis, to want to leave their stuff in these? Next thing you know there's going to be an infestation of cockroaches."

Camille narrowed her eyes. "It's _dust_, Herondale. Not a plague." She grabbed his bag out of his hands and none too gently hung it up on one of the hooks.

"Hey!" Jace was thinking about deliberately shoving her into the lockers, considering that she'd had much worse in many… _ahem_, compromising positions, but she looked too delicate that day in only a purple and orange sundress—an expensive sundress, but a dress nonetheless.

"Stop with your neat freak insecurities. This is more important than your need to be clean."

Jace turned to face her, looking annoyed. "Okay, so Mr. Sparkles turned in paperwork to get a job at a design label. That's not very surprising seeing how—"

"_But he didn't get it_," Camille snapped, spreading her fingers and lightly pushing Jace's chest.

Jace's eyes widened a fraction as the conversation hit a pause.

"I…what do you mean he didn't get it?"

"As in, someone else got the scholarship. Apparently Magnus has too much money to qualify for one. They think he could afford the supplies and design…stuff. Look, I don't know a whole lot about it,"

"Bull," Jace slammed the locker shut, carrying a plain black binder in one hand. "Magnus has been talking about this job for _years_! He applied for the scholarship because he _can't_ afford it. There has to be a reason better than that."

"There isn't. Somebody else came up with the money first." Jace sighed, leaning his head against the cool metal. Despite popular belief and the fact that they argued randomly about everything, himself and Magnus were close, best friends since fifth grade, along with the others. How could Jace _not_ feel for him?

"Damn, he's going to be—wait. How you do you even know this? Does _he _know? And why do you _care_?" Jace said, lifting his head.

"When Magnus turned in all the papers we were still dating," Camille flinched out of character under Jace's darkened gaze. "So he put me down as the second contact. When they couldn't reach Magnus they called me." It was a believable story, Jace noted, not that he actually believed it. "And as for why I care…well, forgetting that we dated at one point, we both lost our virginity to your cousin." Camille smiled wickedly. Jace almost gagged. "We share a mutual interest. And blackmail material."

"But didn't _you_ break up with _him_?"

"Because _he_ cheated on_ me_," Camille said, waving her hands around. It was bad habit. She looked frustrated, as if having to explain something that should have been obvious. "I have my own motives, Herondale. Now, out of the way. I have drama first block so that means a fun trip up the spiral staircase for me," She twisted her finger, ending the conversation on a sarcastic notion, spinning on her heal without warning and striding down the hall, flaunting her hips. The dress flowed around her thin structure.

That was Camille for you, Jace thought shaking his head, heading the opposite way. It was just in her nature to be completely infuriating; one minute facile and simple and the next demanding and bringing people to tears.

Jace reached into his back pocket. He pulled out a pile of ripped pieces of paper. _Damn_. He could just call all the girls and let them down easily. But there were a lot, and he didn't feel like comforting girls he didn't know. It would be a wasted effort, he decided. It's not like he planned to ever talk to any of them again anyways. Instead, he tossed the numbers into his locker and they floated down to the metal panels, settling into the dust.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The academy began to fill with students, and Jace waited patiently in the courtyard, observing the diversity between them. It was fairly obvious who was on the council, and who belonged to the outside.

The council, also known as _the monarchy_ to those who absolutely despised them with every inch of their being, was truly just a metaphor for the students who took charge of the academy; the ones who had the money, impressed the teachers, and led every group, sport, or stereotype—which allowed them to make the rules and keep them in order. They're the ones that the rest of the student body look up to, even when they know they shouldn't.

Jace was one of them, had been since he was a freshmen. The seniors at the time had seen how much of an attraction he was, how he got attention everywhere he went. It wasn't like there was an induction ceremony or anything—if they talked to you, if they told you that you could be high in the ranks, then you were. People start to listen to you when you speak, and they follow through on what you tell them to do.

So of course, while he was waiting for the people to show up that he actually liked, he was bombarded with other students; some for the school newsletter, some for a journalism class, some real, some fake—they just wanted details on his summer.

He finally shooed them away when he saw a girl, across the courtyard close to the freshmen lockers, located down the same hall where the front doors were placed. She wasn't like any of the girls he normally interacted with; she wasn't tall, or blonde, or drop dead gorgeous. She wasn't anybody. She was just a girl dressed in jeans and a white bohemian shrug who had made him stop and stare. She had fiery red hair that bounced around a small face with freckles lining over her nose. The girl was short, much shorter than him, probably only five feet or so. And she was laughing, thin pink lips curved up. It was odd that he could see her so well from the distance apart they were at.

It was like he was watching a movie in HD. Everything and everyone smeared at the edges of the screen, but right in the center it was clear and focused, all on her.

And she was talking to his best friend.

Simon Lewis did not seem like the kind of guy Jace would be caught dead talking to. Simon was the boy who looked a year younger than he actually was, and his nerdy appearance—a lanky un-muscular figure, with floppy brown hair and rectangular glasses, always seen wearing jeans and a gamers t-shirt—fit his nerdy personality. But they'd met in fifth grade before all the 'monarchy' and 'popularity' stuff had begun. It was an odd friendship since they hated what the other loved, but they made it work. Most of the time people gave them strange looks when they were seen together, like what would an 'in' be doing with an 'out'? But their relationship was built on reliability, not giving a damn about what other people thought.

Jace stood from the metal bench with a surge of familiarity and pushed past the crowds and out of the courtyard, where the sun was still shining brightly through the halls. It suddenly seemed like there were less people in the building.

"And who's this short glass of cherry lemonade?" He said as he approached them.

Simon's head lifted from the girl. Whereas he was already smiling, his eyes brightened upon seeing Jace for the first time in three months. The girl looked startled, her laugh dying as she set eyes on the blond boy. Then she comprehended his statement and flushed a bright red. He wasn't sure if it was out of embarrassment or anger.

"I am not _that_ short," The girl said stubbornly, crossing her arms. Jace smiled, amused. Her voice was light and sweet, but he could tell that she had a demanding undertone that could reveal with deeper temptation.

Beside them, Simon laughed at the exchange. Today his shirt read 'PLAYING VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES NEVER DID ME ANY HARM'.

"Hey Jace," he said. "How was Italy?" Jace wrapped his free arm around Simon's shoulders in one of those "_I missed you like hell but I'm too manly to express it that way_" hugs.

"Italy was good. The food, the clubs, the _girls_," Jace smirked knowingly at Simon, who despite being almost 18 had never had a serious girlfriend. "Of course, all Alec wanted to do was go to old libraries and museums. You know—history stuff." Jace shook his head.

"Well what's wrong with history?" The girl spoke up, getting their attention.

"Oh!" Simon said, remembering she was there. He shrugged out of Jace's embrace. "Jace, this is Clary. We met this summer at Tisch." He motioned with his hands towards her. "Clary, this is—"

"Jace Herondale, your best friend; adopted by the Lightwood's at ten years old due to an abusive household, can be an inconsiderate asshole at times, and goes through girls faster than money." Clary smiled.

Jace stared at her incredulously. "I..."

Her smile widened, becoming oddly sincere, and her jade eyes lit up like chemical flames; Simon looked nervous. "Don't worry; I'm not one of your stalker fangirls. Simon told me all about you and your friends at Tisch. Art and music were in the same hall."

"Really? Simon told you all of this?" Jace snuck a glance at Simon who had diverted his eyes to the ground. "You too must be _so_ close, to share _other people's_ secrets, hmm? Are you two dating?"

Clary blushed a harsh red, her face turning the color of her hair. "Oh, god. No, of course not. We're just friends." She stumbled over her words. Jace guessed she wasn't one to talk about herself a lot.

Jace snickered and leaned against the lockers behind them. "So are you a freshman?"

"Sophomore, actually." Clary said. "My mom moved in with her boyfriend so I had to transfer."

"From where?"

"St. Xavier's,"

"St. Xavier's," Jace repeated. "Prestigious bastards. How did you manage? Don't they wear uniforms there?"

Clary laughed. "Hey! I used to be one of those 'prestigious bastards'. And besides, aren't you guys here always battling for the top of the food chain?"

Jace frowned. "Not all of us are like that. Some people just have a desire for more attention than others, but the most of the kids who go here tend not to be so esurient. There's just a few you have to look out for,"

"What about you?" Her voice was low, in a way teasing. "Which one are you like?" She must have realized what she said because her face lit up again. Jace's lips twitched. "Oh, uh, well…" Her arms fidgeted between each other. "I should go—get my schedule. Um, it was nice talking to you. See you later, Simon." With a nod of her head, Clary hurried down the hall.

Simon waited for her to completely vanish from their sight before turning to Jace. "Dude, I'm sorry, about Clary. One day we were just talking and things—"

"—started to get personal." Jace grimaced, still watching the end of the hall as if Clary was going to reappear. "I get it. Do you like her or something?"

There was a distinct pause. "I don't know, maybe. I guess it's just nice to hang out and not have to worry about pressure and stuff, you know?" Jace didn't know. "And what about you? You and Clary seemed to hit it off pretty well," Simon said, not bothering to hide the suspicion in his tone.

"What are you talking about?" Jace raised his eyebrows, facing his best friend again.

"Hello? You two were _flirting_," Simon said pointedly.

Jace rolled his eyes. "Please. I flirt with everyone. Besides, Clary is definitely not the kind of girl I would ever consider going out with,"

"Right, because she doesn't fit your golden girl job description? You know, relationships can stretch further than the bedroom." Simon said.

"Says the guy who's never made it past first base." Jace denoted smugly. Simon's nose scrunched up like it always did when he was aggravated, and punched Jace's shoulder lightly. Jace yelped.

"Hey!"

Around them, the atmosphere tensed as the students went oddly rigid, like they weren't sure if they were suppose to get louder or stop talking all together. Some did one while some did the other, making an odd mixture of loud and quiet. Individual voices stood out clearly. Heedless of their actions, the other students stepped obliviously back a few feet, eying the end of the hall, also the front entrance, cautiously, like they weren't suppose to be staring, watching.

Jace pulled his arms inwards and chuckled lightly at the bewilderment appearing on the younger student's faces—they were mainly the ones who stayed quiet, communicating in only hushed whispers. However, the older and more mature students at Alicante, who _had_ seen this kind of bombshell (not really, in terms of the person of interest) before, started to mob together, getting to _him_ before the "stalkerazzi" showed up. It wasn't uncommon to have cameras flashing randomly at Alicante. Some of the students were literally famous, either through talent searches or having known parents—usually the rich ones. Jace's own parent's—his birth ones—had been actors, not that anybody that mattered knew that. The majority of the people he interacted with only knew he'd been adopted out twice since their deaths.

There was a flash of a camera, bringing him out of his thoughts.

Magnus Bane—the bright, bisexual, and eccentric fashionista of Alicante Academy, strutted through the hybrid glass marble doors removing a pair of knock-off Emilio Pucci sunglasses from his head to reveal the same playful, teasing, glitter and guyliner encrusted eyes Jace remembered. His hips moved in skin-tight white jeans, and a yellow-green t-shirt hung off one shoulder, with the _Sunkist_ logo in the center. His legs crossed on each step, showing off blinding bright orange platform boots, hugging his legs up to the knees.

He was instantly swallowed in the crowd.

Jace was reminded of earlier in the morning; he had a feeling Camille was not going to say anything to Magnus about the _Cherrytree Enterprises_ scholarship—which was exactly why she'd told him, so she could avoid talking to her ex. He wasn't exactly sure how he would go about that.

"Poor Magnus; he'll be upset if his hair gets messed up." Simon said.

Magnus Bane, as a person, was a bit of a contradiction. He was the opposite of Simon. Magnus was a person that you _had_ to be seen with or else you were just another pretty face among the council. Magnus was second in command, next to Will Herondale, his cousin (which was a bit of another paradox seeing that they _hated_ each other, for more than one reason), embracing everything about himself so that there wasn't a single space of doubt—of course, once you pretend long enough it actually became true. Jace's past was a blur, as he had endured so much abuse in his short-lived childhood that he had trained himself to forget it, but Magnus…well, Magnus had the mental strength of an eagle. Nobody's past could come close to beating his. He'd had so much shoved on to him in such a short amount of time, Jace was amazed that Magnus was even still alive—or at least not wallowing in self-depression. And of course, Magnus was a contradiction because he was happy. Who could be happy after what he'd been through? Jace had always been a bit suspicious though about the way Magnus started wearing the heavy makeup and hair gel right after _the incident_. Jace wondered if Magnus thought he could cover and hide his past with concealer or foundation, and that always led Jace to wonder if Magnus was trying to cover more than just his past...

Scars.

Magnus emerged from the crowd, hair still faux-hawked up in dense spikes. His smiled was that of a Cheshire, and lit up the corridor as much as the sun did.

"They get worse every year!" said Magnus as he approached them. "Is my hair okay?" Magnus put a tentative hand on the top of the spikes.

Simon suppressed a smile.

"You're hair's fine, you sparkly bastard." Jace joked, pushing off the lockers. Magnus faked a gasp.

"How dare you insult _moi_, especially when I haven't seen any of you in months."

"Exactly," Jace said. "You haven't called or Skyped since summer let out. We were beginning to think you were dead. Although, I'm not sure how _sparkly bastard_ implies an insult, since it is actually true." He pointed out.

"Oh, shut up. Let me enjoy this reunion without all the sarcasm." Magnus opened his arms wide, taunting Jace with his grin. Jace couldn't help but return the smile. He shook his head in the way that again expressed his 'sarcastic solace hesitation', and opened up an arm. Simon could see the delight on Magnus face as he completely ignored the one arm side hug offer and straightly enveloped Jace with his thin arms.

"Ah, I missed you guys!" said Magnus, backing off of Jace—who had in the process of being hugged was slammed back into the lockers. He was rubbing his shoulder, grumbling unmeaningful curses at Magnus. "And Simon, where's my squeeze?" Magnus said dauntingly, motioning him forward with his fingers.

Simon was always the calmer one, the one who stayed in the back and let the others shine, which also made him the most sane and least likely to get in trouble. He was also the least enthusiastic about other things outside his general life—like, Jace didn't even play sports and he was expecting to get a scholarship to Idris School of the Athletically Gifted. Magnus absolutely could not work with other people and he wanted to be on a design team. Hell, even Alec had dreams. Simon was just…Simon. Nothing special, completely plain, black and white, unnoticed. He had a small corner of his mind reserved for his future, but with the way he was going he had no idea how to get there.

Magnus was the only one who seemed to get that, and Simon knew it. He always looked at Simon a bit more sadly than anybody else, thinking that Simon deserved just as much attention as everybody else. It was a perfect case of judging a book by its cover.

"Hey Magnus," Simon said. Instead of being attacked by Magnus' senior excitement, he artlessly wrapped his bag-occupied arm around Simon's shoulder.

"So how was your summer? Any interesting affairs I should know about?" Magnus asked.

"Not really, although I did have an affair with—"

Magnus stopped him. He raised a hand up and puckered his orange lipstick stained lips. "Please, Jace. If I wanted to talk girls I'd find Aline." Simon snickered next to him.

"Well then I suppose you don't want to hear about Simon's new girlfriend," Magnus' eyebrows shot up.

"Girlfriend? Simon? No, those two things don't match up right. It even sounds weird in the same sentence."

"_Clary isn't my girlfriend_, Jace," Simon groaned. "She's just a friend,"

"Which is why you were ogling her—"

"Okay," Magnus cut in. "Enough of this. Jace, don't tease Simon. It's mean. And Simon, don't lie about your relationships. It's unbecoming."

Simon looked at Magnus incredulously. "I'm not—"

"Where's Alexander? Is he here?" Magnus asked, doing a quick turnaround to search the hallway.

"Not yet," Jace answered. "He and Isabelle had to drop Max off at Winchester."

Magnus' smile faded; his face hardened and his eyebrows pinched—it was a rarity that Magnus was dead serious, and that was now. He took a small step forward so that himself, Simon, and Jace were in a small huddle.

"So…how did he hold up? You guys were in an entirely different _country_ for two months. That's way different than my guest bedroom." Jace sighed deeply with a blank face.

"Surprising well," Jace finally said. "Up until the last two weeks of the trip I didn't even have to bring it up. He was coping so I didn't see a need."

"What happened then?" Simon asked. They were all talking in strangely low voices, like someone might hear them, which was unlikely considering the amount of noise around them.

"Nothing eventful. Alec ran out of pills, we picked up some more. The doctor prescribed a different brand though. It's stronger. It's supposed to help more with the nightmares."

"That's good though, isn't it? You seem doubtful somehow." Simon observed.

Jace's eyes fell shut for a moment. His shoulders tensed something that tended to happen when he was frustrated over something he couldn't fix. "It's just that…well, after all these years of medication, and asking the right questions, and just—after all these years, Alec just keeps…fading away. His personality, his—I don't know, his _soul_. He's just kind of empty. I know he doesn't have a choice, but the medication changes him, slowly, over the years. It's stealing from _him_, his options. And all I can do is sit back and watch it happen,"

With that note, they settled into an uncomfortable silence.

"Look, let's just not bring this up when he gets here, okay? We've never talked about it before, we don't have to talk about it now," Jace said. "It _is_ rather a mood killer anyways,"

Magnus opened his mouth, but a different voice came out of it. "What's a mood killer?"

Around the corner on the opposite end of the hallway, Alec Lightwood made his appearance, dressed in black jeans—worn at the bottoms and holes at the knees (not the kinds put in to make them more expensive)—and a black t-shirt; well, it use to be black—now it was just an odd shade of gray. His old Chuck Taylor's hung on his feet, shoelaces still barely in tack, and the same beat up black back pack he'd been using since eighth grade was slung over his shoulder. His hair, black as a crow's feathers, hung straight over cerulean colored eyes. Magnus had once tried to count all the shades of blue in his best friend's irises, but he ended up with a list so long that it reached to the ceiling. A hypothetical ceiling, anyways.

Magnus was quick to replace his sullen face and his own golden green eyes lit up like fireworks.

In friendships, there are always two people who are more compatible than the others. There are always two people who just _click_. Those two people trust each other more than anybody in the world, even their own family, and of course, more than the other friends. Even when the other friends _are_ their family. That was Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane.

"Alec!" he exclaimed. Alec's smile was shy, as it always was.

"Hey guys," Alec greeted quietly.

"Alec, dude, welcome back." Simon announced, his voice booming compared to the blue eyed boy.

"You're a mood killer," Jace said playfully. "I was just telling them all about how boring you were in Italy."

"At least I didn't want to drive to Valentina Cervi's summer house _just_ to get a picture of her cat," Alec reminded.

"Her cat?" Simon questioned amused. "Dude, you've lost your game."

As they bickered back and forth, laughing catching up on summer's events (something Magnus knew he should be doing as well), Magnus leaned back and observed Alec, and the…the _sameness_, of him. Alec was the one constant thing in his life, the one thing he could always rely on. But lately, and especially since it was summer break, they'd drifted. Magnus hoped that they could mend back together, two pieces of the same puzzle. But what if the puzzle was too complicated? What if it turned into a game board, full of twists and turns and nightmares and tears? Magnus only had one year left until everything changed. One year was not enough to the get the truth out of a person so closed and guarded. And if it was, then what would happen afterwards?

. . . . . . . . . . . .

_*The Night Before*_

Alec shot up in his bed like a bat out of hell, feeling smothered and intoxicated—but not by something pleasurable. The dream came rushing back to him. He'd been in bed with Magnus, _again_, and they'd been kissing, touching, whispering nothings—or everything's, in Alec's eyes— into each other's ears. There'd been moaning responses, groans of excitement, like always. But then, like always, Magnus morphed. His eyes turned black, and his teeth grew into fangs. Scales began to appear on his face and claws emerged from his fingernails. Around the bed the world would melt into a black atmosphere, and blood started to fill the last seconds of his life while this new Magnus would disembody him. He remembered feeling the anger and insanity boiling up from a dark place inside him that he hadn't known existed. But then, doesn't everybody have a black hole within them self, just waiting for the right time to make an appearance?

He hastily pulled himself up with his elbows, leaning his head against the white wall of his bedroom, since his too-small and stiff bed lacked a proper headboard. His body was tangled in a mess of sheets, damp from the sweat covering his body. He only sat there for a moment, running his arms through his hair—which was sure to look like something died in it—eyes closed and trying to get his breathing under control. Eventually when his heart rate began to calm, he realized how hot he actually was. His arms and legs were sweltering from the heat. Was the heater on—in August? No, he could hear the air conditioning running. He was just sweating his guilt.

Another dream—nightmare, really—about his best friend.

Swinging his legs over the side of his bed, Alec quickly glanced at his alarm clock. It read _4:57_. Almost three hours ago he'd woken from the same dream, certain that he wouldn't be able to sleep anymore that night. But then he fell back into oblivion only minutes later, just to relive the same hellish nightmare as before.

The damn pills were wearing off again. It happened occasionally, that his mind would be able to overrun the medication that he was forced to inhale.

Alec walked dizzily across the room, toes sinking into the carpet, and into the bathroom. Flicking on the light, the first thing he saw was his reflection in the mirror. Puffy, bloodshot eyes—the once bright sapphire now a pale grayish color. His hair was, indeed, mopped carelessly across his face, sticking to his forehead. He ran a hand through it hoping that it might tame the mess. Unfortunately it just went back to the way it usually was, hanging over his eyes.

Alec knew he wasn't going back to sleep that night—he couldn't bear the thought of witnessing the nightmare again. Instead, he stripped down out of his long-sleeve shirt and sweat pants and turned the water on in the shower, thinking that the slower he did it the less noise it would cause. He didn't want to wake anyone up. After a minute he saw the steam finally start to rise from the shower and stepped in. Like he wanted, the water was scolding hot and for just a moment he focused on the burning of the water on his back instead of the gore he'd dreamed of.

The hot water couldn't keep other thoughts away though. He couldn't bear the thought of going back to school the next day and having to face Magnus. All summer he'd been dreaming of him, passionate nights and lounge-y mornings, full of sex and heat and drugs…so real…eventually they'd turned morbid.

Hell was a deadly state to be in, but unluckily for him, he'd somehow already gotten there.

* * *

_A/N:** JANUARY FIRST**_**_ EDIT_: I'll be rewriting this chapter soon, and chapter four, so if you find it cringe-worthy right now hopefully that'll change.****  
**

Sidenote: _Winchester is the elementary that Max attends to._

xxShar [is thinking: _All that is holy__, this is over seven thousand words. Never expect this again._]


	2. Welcome To My World Of Pain

**CHAPTER TWO****: _Welcome To My World Of Pain_**

_They weren't scars, not exactly. _

_A scar is implied to have no meaning, no reason of existence. A scar was something you received in a car crash, or a fire, or from being bit by a wild animal. A scar was a sign that you were weak, and something more powerful than your had been able to leave its mark on your flesh._

_No. These were not scars. They were carved so delicately, etched under the skin of his body with such care and emotion and pain that they were so much more. They were a part of him, a part of something greater than just his mind and soul. They were something other worldly. _

_His father had once told him, when he was a small boy, that ancient warriors would paint their skin with the marks of an angel before going to battle, giving them strength, agility, fearlessness, amongst many other abilities. It was all he had ever wanted: to be fearless._

_But he wasn't fearless. In the middle of the night, when the monsters would crawl from under his bed, and the dead lady's sharp voice would cut through the air, he would be afraid and helpless against the creatures of the night. The only thing he could do was stay awake and wait for the peak of sunrise. It was the hopeless seeming nights that made him wish he could be without fear._

_So that was what he had done. He had drawn those designs—runes—on to his arms, carefully making each intricate line steady and perfect, so that he had 'fearless' written on his skin in a million different places.  
_

_With the knife he had found in kitchen drawer.  
_

_. . . . . . . . . . . ._

The day past long and uneventful. Alec found himself repeatedly thinking about the night before; between passing periods, in classes—which wasn't acceptable in his eyes because school was a place for knowledge, not personal issues. But he couldn't help it. He'd felt Magnus' eyes on him in Ancient Civilizations (the only class besides Art that they shared), during lunch, in the halls, trying to drag him out of his mental capture. Every look from his best friend made his conscious swell with guilt. What would Magnus say if he knew about the things Alec had dreamed in Italy?

While he wasn't occupied with wondering why the medication was wearing off again, he actually enjoyed his first day back. Alec had gotten into all the classes he signed up for in the Spring, including all the extra courses that his parents were unaware of—and would probably have their say with him if they found out. He had two classes with Magnus, one with Simon (physics. Oh joy...), three with Jace (Ancient Civilizations, Chem., and AP English), and the rest shared with the members of the swim team, in which he was the star.

Alec got into swimming around the time he'd begun to question his sexuality. At the time he'd been just as socially awkward and shy, at fourteen. He tried out for the Alicante Angels at fifteen, when he was freshman, and the team had welcomed him with opened arms. Of course, being as closed and awkward as he was, sharing a locker room with a bunch of muscle men seniors had been his absolute nightmare. He wasn't certain about anything at that age, but the fact that he had to hide, _ahem_, his _arousal_ from them just two weeks into the year, he wasn't to let the idea go that he might be gay.

Part of the reason that coming out was an issue for him was that he wasn't sure how the guys on the team would feel about having a gay team member. As the only openly gay persona in the entire academy was Magnus, he didn't exactly have anyone he could ask. He'd lose his fangirls as well, which were still following him around after four years of polite rejection. Jace didn't understand it, Alec knew that much. Why he kept turning down the hottest girls. And why would he? What did he have to lose? His happiness? Yeah. That.

But, it was still only part of the reason.

"Alec. Hello? Alec? Are you in there?" Alec looked up from his easel startled. Magnus was standing next to him, waving a hand in front of his face.

They were in art, their last block of the day. Already the teacher had assigned a project (_"be sure to capture the essence of the koala in your painting, as well as an emotion you feel uncomfortable with" _Screw it.), so they were lined up in rows in front of a white canvas, ready to express their most undesired feelings about a marsupial.

"You're doing it again," Magnus sang accusingly, bring his small brush back down on the canvas. While Magnus was making great effort to at least make his project _resemble_ a koala, it looked more like the small animal had thrown up on the page and rolled around in it.

Alec pressed his lips together and exhaled deeply, staring at his canvas which was still completely blank.

"I know," He spit out. "I know, I'm sorry," He blinked harshly at the paint palette in front of him, waiting for inspiration to strike.

"I just want to know why you keep drifting into space. I'm not boring you, am I? I can tone down the Paris talk if you want," Another known fact about Magnus was that during the summer he'd won a contest from Victoria's Secret (why Magnus was involved with a women's underwear company Alec didn't know) to Fashion Week Paris, air travel included and all. He'd spent the summer learning the newest trends and watching anorexic models strut down a runway.

"No, of course not," Alec hoped he sounded convincing. "I just...have a lot..." his voice receded. "On my mind..." Alec picked up the brush for the first time and drew it across the canvas, curving to form the ear.

Magnus didn't even hesitate to respond. "Alright, so let's talk about something else. Like Italy, which seems to be a topic you're avoiding." He waved his brush at Alec. "Did something go down over there that I should know about?" He teased, hoping to bring Alec's eyes to life, something he'd been waiting to see all day.

Alec bit his tongue and paused.

"Oh, so something _did_ go down in Italy." Magnus set his brush down on the grey table in front of him, crossing his arms and leaning his hips against the surface so that he was facing Alec. "What happened?"

Alec appeared to be a bit flustered upon how to answer, he noticed, but Alec picked up his brush again and continued to work as if the acknowledgment hadn't bothered him a bit. "I don't want to talk about it,"

But being as persistent as Magnus was, he didn't let it go that easy. "Did you, I don't know, hook up with someone? Get a dirty tattoo? Wait—were _you_ the one who got drunk with Robert Pattinson?"

"_What?_ Magnus, stop. Nothing happened in Italy."

"But something did happen in Italy—you just said—"

"—that I didn't want to talk about it. You know me, Magnus. If it was important enough for you to know, I would tell you." Magnus knew the conversation was over. He turned back to his easel not really hurt, but a bit frustrated from the lack of trust coming from Alec, whom he shared every bit of his life with.

"Fine. No need to be such a grip about it,"

Alec did feel a little bad, but telling his best friend that he'd been having heavy dreams about him was not an option. Alec had never had feelings for Magnus before. He knew that Magnus was gay, or bi anyways, and had for a while—like, six years, but being gay did not mean you wanted to make out with every man you saw. There were still people you liked and people you didn't. Alec didn't like Magnus. Maybe.

But dreams didn't mean anything, right? Half the time they were nightmares when Magnus was in them, spinning and feeding, blowing apart with no real direction.

He couldn't make Magnus deal with a problem that wasn't his, when he had many worse things to deal with.

"You aren't, um, actually going to turn that in, are you?" Alec asked hesitantly towards the bell. Magnus felt a smile tugging at his lips. When he looked over beside him, Alec was staring at his canvas with interest. There was a grey blob, and a green line...and that was about it. Alec's didn't look much better.

"Right." The grin finally captured his lips. "I will if you will,"

_. . . . . . . . . . . ._

When Alec was little, he thought the world was square. It only made sense, considering the black and white world he'd grown up in. One step into grey and off the corner of the earth you went. However, the world is not square, and nothing is black and white unless you choose to think of it that way. Alec did not know this when he was ten years old. Before he was introduced into a world of color and lights and _procedures_, being different was bad, it made you not right, wrong in every way; turning left instead of right, crashing into the depths of hell where the mad people reigned…Alec had been different and that scared him. He would crawl under the blankets at night wishing and hoping for the next morning to be full of sunshine and music and—but it wasn't. Every _fucking_ morning he would awake to the demons that lived in his mind.

Then he found out why he was different, and how…and everything changed. He found out that being different was okay, and that it didn't make you wrong, but right, in every single way. Almost. Almost right.

Because what could be right in your mind when everyone around you was hurting?

Jace had come to the Lightwood Mansion, with seven years of a childhood full of abuse and hurt, with a burn scar behind his left ear where his old adoptive father had lost control.

Jace Herondale had scars and haunted memories that showed Alec that being different and not normal was okay.

Alec Lightwood still did not believe that being different was okay.

Being different made you stand out; it made you crave for the attention that was given to you. But he didn't want that. He wanted to blend it, stay whole and right and _sane_.

You don't always get what you want.

_. . . . . . . . . . . ._

Alec knew the second he opened the door to the Lightwood Mansion, things would not end well. Not in a "the world is going to burn down and all the kittens are going to grow fangs and kill every last human being" kind of not well, but a more subtle not well, like "all the sisters in the world will lock their brothers in a closet until they tell them who they lost their virginity to" not well.

And it was true—that had happened to Alec when he was sixteen, although he was a virgin. Still was. It wasn't something that embarrassed him, really, it was just awkward when the other guys were talking about getting it on with their girlfriends when one, Alec didn't have a girlfriend, two, Alec didn't want a girlfriend, and three, if he told anyone that it would just be more awkward.

But not well. Yes, it did not end well.

The Lightwood Mansion could only be described so many ways, since it was a pretty basic house. It was huge, and white, and surrounded by little palm trees…that was about it. The small lawn was always green, the windows were small, although there were many, and it was two stories and square-like. It lined up in a row of other mansions in the Upper West Side, so it wasn't as definable as one might think.

"But anyways, now I'm stuck with a bunch of freaking freshman until—"

"Jace," Alec interrupted. His adoptive brother had been droning about his day, how awful it was and how much better it could've been; what girls asked him out and which girls absolutely repulsed him. All girls repulsed Alec. "I don't care," He smiled innocently from the passenger seat as they pulled into the driveway.

"Well you won't tell me about your day so I have to have _something_ to—"

"Because you haven't asked me. And I wouldn't tell you if you did. It wasn't that interesting,"

"Would you stop inter—" Alec stepped out of the car and slammed the door.

He trudged up the front steps and opened the marble door to met with a blast of cold air. The Mansion was cold, always. It was his parent's personal preference. Alec thought it matched their personalities. Of course, Alec was always cold even without the air conditioning on. His body never warmed up, not even after—

The inside of the mansion was also stark white, with high walls and ceilings, and carpet. Vases full of natural grey and orange flowers lined the entrance hall adding the only color in the entire estate.

Now, if he could only make it to his bedroom without—

"Mr. Lightwood," A scraggy voice said behind him, just when he'd reached the bottom of the staircase. Alec mentally groaned before turning around. Hodge Starkweather, his parent's assistant stood at the doorway to the kitchen.

Hodge was in his late forties, already sprouting streaks of grey within his brown hair. Frown lines laced his forehead and glasses sat on his nose, giving him the appearance of a librarian or a history teacher, both of which he use to be.

Before Alec could attend public school—a part of his parent's fear that he would lash out in public and embarrass them—Hodge tutored him in History and English while another assistant taught him Math and Science. That was through fourth grade. Fifth grade was the first year he was allowed to enroll in public school with Jace and Isabelle. It was where he met Magnus and Simon, and unlikely friendships were formed.

Simon was a gamer nerd, Magnus was still actually relatively subtle with hair and makeup, Jace was a player even at eleven, and Alec was the shy reader who sat in a corner and ignored the rest of the student's teasing.

"Yes, Hodge?"

"Was your first day back pleasant?"

"Sure, I guess…" Alec tried to be enthusiastic, but the headache he had recently received was not allowing it.

Hodge cleared his throat. "Well, your mother wished that I see to it that you accept this," He held out a small bottle, clear, and filled it tiny purple and white pills. Alec starred at them. These were the backup pills his therapist had been talking about, in case of a public emergency. Just one pill would numb his body for hours on end until he could get to his regular medication.

He was apprehensive to take them, seeing that he'd never believed in doctors, and the fact they had the right to take over your body and make it do what they wanted it to do. They could cut into it, look at you while exposed, give you things to take pain away when really all it did was provide a short term solution to a long term problem.

He took them anyways, having to force his hand to move several times until he grasped the bottle in his hand.

"Um, thank you," was the only thing he was able to say before going upstairs and locking himself in his room, turning up his music so loud so that the only thing he could hear was the beat of his diseased heart.

___. . . . . . . . . . . ._

The dress was still too long, but any shorter and you would able to see the girl's crotch. _The shoulder aspect is nice though._ The way it kind of curves down and then—_fuck it_, he thought.

Magnus tore the sheet from the note book and crumpled it up before tossing it across his room. He still needed three more pieces to finish the collection he'd been working on in his free time. All the dresses so far were edgy, ripped, high fashioned, but he needed something now that tied it all together and he wasn't really having any luck with that at all.

Magnus made his own clothes. He designed them, cut the fabric, and sewed the pieces together so he didn't have to pay for high priced designer clothes like everyone thought he did—because he actually couldn't afford that, unlike popular belief. People would often ask him where he got his clothes and the answer would always be "_Oh, I ordered it online from a private retailer in London_," because nobody actually made the clothes he wore. He was his own designer.

When he wasn't busy with friends or school, or making new things he could wear in public, he'd begun to design his own original line, going under the name _Punk Wedding_. Magnus didn't actually like the name, but it was all he had going at the moment. The dresses were supposed to show the demon inside you, instead of the angel that everyone sees. And so far he thought it was coming together nicely, but he wasn't finished yet and couldn't seem to grasp the inspiration to finish.

He thought of himself as the best candidate for the _Cherrytree Enterprises_ next designer. He had tons of experience but not the money, which is why he applied for a scholarship. But why do you need a scholarship for a job that's going to pay you? Being a designer was an individual solo job, even when working for a company. You had to be able to provide your own fabric, machinery, materials, and the whole lot. Magnus could barely afford to keep himself dressed, much less a bunch of top notch models that used _real_ animal skin and not faux stuff like he did.

Magnus sighed and flipped through the sketchbook, looking at the rest of the line trying to figure out what he had and what he needed. His eye caught on a colored page. It was the only design he'd ever colored, so that his she-demon of an ex-girlfriend could approve of it. It was the dress he made Camille last year for homecoming; it was a light cream and stopped at the knees, poofing out in an oddly Victorian kind of way. He had topped it off with a red wire corset just to add some color. He had to admit that she'd looked nice in it. Magnus wondered if Camille still had it—

Holy _hell_, Camille.

Magnus' eyes flew opened. Magnus had written Camille's number down as the emergency contact for _Cherrytree Enterprises_. If they hadn't been able to reach him in Paris then they would have called Camille.

_Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap. _Magnus shut the sketchbook in a hurry and reached for his phone on the bedside table, pulling it from the charger.

Lucky for him he still had Camille's number on speed dial.

_______. . . . . . . . . . . ._

Isabelle Lightwood did not understand love in the slightest. It was like math. No matter how many times she put in the right numbers, the answer would always come out wrong. She got _A's_ in math. She should have this whole thing figured out—at sixteen years old, she did not need to use a calculator—or in this case, Yahoo! Answers.

Love just…never worked out the way she expected it. It wasn't like in the movies, or sob-worthy romance novels she read. The teenager couldn't just walk into bio class suddenly see the love of her life sitting in her chair. There were no happy endings for her.

Now, a lot of people would say and agree that she'd barely lived. How could she find love in such a short amount of time? But those people didn't understand that Isabelle had looked everywhere for this foreign concept of _love_. First, she started with her parents, when she was a little girl. Just like every other child, she wanted to show her parents that she was just as loveable as other kids, but they'd turned her away with the excuse that they had work to do. Second, she tried to flirt with a guy in third grade. The guy had told her that girls were gross. Third, she kissed a guy in sixth grade. They began to date (Isabelle couldn't even remember his name now) but in the summer he'd broken up with her. The next year she lost her virginity to a ninth grader because she read that once you slept with someone it formed a special connection. The next day he moved and never called her again.

It was at that point that she realized she scared love away. Something about her just repulsed _love_.

Then she gave up. She started dating guys for their looks and they would date her for the sex and money. She wasn't necessarily a whore. She didn't sleep with just any guy who walked up to her. She didn't cheat or make them pay. Once she'd played enough with whoever it was she gave them what they wanted and then they left. There was no love there at all.

Recently she had begun to date a junior—Meliorn—, and for the first time ever she felt that foreign concept of _love_. They'd dated for two weeks during the summer when Isabelle dropped the bomb. She'd pulled out a condom at his house (he was emancipated), and he'd practically died. He revealed to her that he had never actually gone all the way before and wanted to wait. _Wanted to wait_. That in itself was a totally foreign concept for Isabelle—she was so used to guys throwing her around and making her buy them things that she was taken aback and a bit embarrassed.

Was that love? Was _waiting_ love? Isabelle didn't know. But she did know that for the first time since she was a child she had hope for this idea of _love_.

Isabelle hurried down the steps of Taki's carrying a brown bag the size of her torso, filled with Chinese food for dinner. Her parents were once again out at some meeting making her and her siblings fend for themselves.

She hurried down Park Avenue in her pink Jimmy Choo heels, about to turn off so she could cut through Central Park and shorten the walk (she'd wanted to catch a cab, but the six o'clock traffic was horrifying) when she collided with another figure and was sent tumbling down on the sidewalk. The bag was thrown from her hands and the box cartons spiraling across the concrete.

"Fucking hell," She murmured under her breath. "Watch where you're going!" She shouted. She hurriedly reached for the cartons in hopes that none got trampled by the mobs of people around her.

"Isabelle?" She glanced up, getting to her knees. In front of her was the infamous Simon Lewis. She'd seen him in the halls and with Alec or Jace sometimes. She never went out of her way to talk to him. "Isabelle, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Really I didn't mean—I was just walking and—" Isabelle was partly surprised that he knew her name, but then she really wasn't because he hung out with Alec all the time.

"Simon, uh…" She trailed off, a bit confused, as if she didn't know what to say.

"Here," Simon hurriedly helped her throw the boxes in the bag, hair flopping around his head. Isabelle was too stunned to speak.

She shook herself over the fact he was helping her and stood when he offered her a hand.

"Uh, thank y—"

"Really, I'm sorr—"

They spoke simultaneously, stopped, and then laughed awkwardly.

"So, uh, you know my name?" Simon said, more of a statement than a question.

"Well, sure. Alec talks about his friends all the time,"

"Oh really? What kind of things?" He asked. His smile was contagious and Isabelle couldn't help but grin a bit.

"I know you're in a band—that sucks," She teased. Isabelle wasn't sure why she didn't just walk away right now. Girls like her didn't talk to guys like him, and when they did they were dethroned.

Simon laughed, bright and lightweight; something not a lot of guys could pull off without seeming fake.

"Um, I should go," She said, jerking her thumb across the street. He was actually making her nervous.

"Right—I'll just, um…"

"See you at school?" She offered. Simon's eyes widen just a fraction and then nodded.

"Yeah, sure…" She gave one last smile before turning and disappearing into the crowd of people.

___. . . . . . . . . . . ._

Alec's room was bland, unlike his sister's which was bright purple and black, covered top to bottom with clothes and magazines. His walls were milk coffee colored, and a single person bed sat in the middle, with a small desk in the corner next to his dresser. No closet. The only other door led to his bathroom.

Alec sat on the counter top in only black nylon sweat pants, watching his reflection, waiting for it to not mimic his motions, breathing patterns, blinking. He thought it would, it always did. It might not lean with him, or it might smile, or frown, or it might start silently screaming. One time it jumped off the counter top completely. But no. This time it did nothing but stare back at him.

He'd always hated reflections of any kind. In water, in a mirror, in a car window, in polished wood…It was like someone else was watching you. You can't get rid of reflections. No matter what you do, they will always be there, wearing your face, making you watch them so they won't move without your consent.

It was a little odd, he thought, brushing his shagged bangs out of his face. Usually, if he didn't take the pills before nine o'clock (they lasted for twelve hours at a time. Nine in the morning and nine at night), and they started to wear off for good, colors would start blending and object would fall apart, and the old lady would start screaming, but not tonight. He hadn't taken the pills this morning or so far tonight, just to see what would happen, and all he'd gotten was a small headache. What if he was becoming normal? What was normal? Magnus? Jace? Isabelle?

Alec sighed and took one glance into the mirror before hopping off the sink; his toes met with the cold tile floor. He popped open the pill bottle and was about to dump the contents into his hand to get one out—he stopped himself in thought.

What if...what if he didn't take them?

* * *

___A/N:_ **AH! Only the second chapter and I'm already having trouble piecing the plot together. I'm not so happy with this chapter, mainly because the story hasn't even begun yet. Each of the characters has a pretty detailed back story that will take a while to explain. Hope I'm not boring you? I'd be bored...**

**Anyways, I'm a review whore! So please satisfy my needs and leave a review :)  
**

xxShar [is thinking: _Isabelle Lightwood is a b**** to write. Sorry, I don't actually swear. I just make the character do it._]


	3. Kill My Dream Gone Bad

**CHAPTER THREE****:_ Kill__ My Dream Gone Bad  
_**

Light streamed through his eyelids, barely cracked opened. His conscious seemed to burst with a peaceful ambiance and everything seemed to disappear into nothing. Alec embraced the feeling, turning over onto his back and stretching his arms above his head—he was just still in a whirl of motion, addled and calm alike. He didn't even realize how this was so, _so,_ wrong until the bang of pans brought him out of his dream-like state and forced his eyes open.

Alec pulled himself up in bed, eyes dotting around his room in confusion. The window was wide opened but no sound was pouring in, and sunlight was attracted to the white walls like a moth to fire. It was so bright his eyes hurt. Alec tried to recall the night, but he could think of nothing. No monsters, no shadows, no voices…no nightmare. For the first time in four months he'd had no nightmares.

And because he hadn't forced any damn pills down his throat, like he'd been doing since he was six years old.

This is why he didn't trust doctors. They lied and made up stories so you would pay them for a monthly subscription of something that you didn't need—of something that made it worse.

Alec smiled though. A real smile, one that nobody else could see or needed to see. A smile of relief—of freedom from pain.

How wrong he was.

He kept his shower quick, like always, before drying off.

His bathroom was too hotel-like, fancy, for his taste; it was black, small and square, with a borderless rectangular mirror standing opposite of the glass shower and above the marble sink.

Alec stood naked in front of the mirror. He knew he wasn't unattractive, but he could never be the sun. He couldn't shine, no matter how much glitter he wore, or how many colors he threw on his body. He could never make up for the confidence he didn't have. At least today he didn't have dark eye circles, or untamable hair, or pillow imprints on his face.

Alec sighed and pulled on clean jeans, this pair with no holes, and was about to get a fresh shirt from his room—but he caught his reflection in the mirror once again. He hesitantly turned his wrists inwards so that he could see more clearly. The inside of his arms were covered with regretted white lines, overlapping and standing alone, shaping the marks he wanted to forget. _Fearless_, _how naïve_, he thought. How can one truly overcome fear? But a long time ago it was the only thing keeping him going, thinking that those fantasy lines were giving him the strength to carry on.

He almost forgot.

Alec pulled open a drawer and removed a small container, filled with a creamy liquid that he'd stolen out of Isabelle's bathroom a few days ago. Caking the concealer on both arms, he watched as the twisting lines faded into the color of his skin.

Even without the makeup, the scars were barely noticeable now. He hadn't cut since he was fourteen and forced himself to stop for his own health, even though he hadn't thought his health was savable at the time of his life, but still—if anybody found out about these, that would be it for Alec. Even if he convinced them that it was over and he wasn't infected anymore, nobody would believe him, as he had lies scrawled into his skin. His parents would believe that his disease had finally taken over and would send him away—to an institution, to a home, to a hospital; it didn't matter. He would spend the rest of his life in a cell being told that nothing he thought was real was real. That it was all a lie.

Alec didn't like liars.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

This time the dress was too long—he couldn't cut it any shorter without making the skirt puff out like a freaking ballerina. The cross section in the middle was too complicated, and bust would only work on a girl with a _very_ small chest. Magnus sighed in exasperation as he leaned back in the wooden chair, staring at the design. If he were alone, he would swear the paper to bits—that was, if the dead tree could hear him.

He was sitting in the middle of a rather crowded Starbucks, the one that was right across the street from Alicante. Over the years it had become a morning hangout for students who had to be at school early, and because classes started in an hour, at nine thirty, the place was pretty full. There were girls just standing around, giggling and talking, and in the corner by the counter there was a group of jocks daring some guy to drink a '_poisonous concoction_" according to the football captain. Magnus couldn't stand football, or jocks. They pushed his buttons to the edge on many more occasions then one. The swim team jocks though, Magnus could deal with, considering that Alec was one of them and Alec was wise enough not to hang out with loser idiots.

And then of course, by the glass wall was the high council. Not the council, no, but the _high _council—as in, the people who would literally make your life a living hell if you pissed them off enough. Kind of like the equivalent of an evil Gossip Girl. Magnus hated being one of them, but it was all for image. Magnus didn't actually talk to them any other times than delivering messages and things among that level, but just watching them laugh and push other people around ticked him to the point of violence.

And of course, sitting right in the center of the five (Aline Penhallow, Sebastian Morgenstern, Elena Cartwright, Helen Blackthorn—Aline's girlfriend—, and Nate Gray) was William Herondale, Jace's dickhead of a cousin, all tall and prideful. _ Damn his eyes_, Magnus thought, and couldn't help but compare them to Alec's. He couldn't help it. Both of them possessed the same swirling oceans.

Will was sitting on the table with an arm wrapped around his girlfriend, Tessa, also Nate's sister. Tessa was laughing along with them, but he could tell that deep down she was uncomfortable as hell. Magnus had always felt sorry for Tessa. She stayed with Will for whatever reason, probably being abused verbally and physically—it wouldn't surprise him as Will beat around everyone else—when another guy was starving after her. Will's half-brother, Jem Carstairs. It was a rather tragic love story, Magnus thought. But then, his own love story was far more tragic, having feelings for a guy who broke his heart and stomped on it in a millions different ways, and longing after someone who wasn't even gay at the same time.

Magnus glanced back down at the sketch pad. He was about to pull it from the glue and wad it up, but a pale hand clamped down on the pad, startling him. The hand was covered in ruby colored rings.

"That's pretty. I remember when you used to make me dresses," Magnus gazed up. Camille was standing by the table, grinning down at him with a steaming cup of black coffee. Magnus wrinkled his nose, able to smell the bitter drink. "Hello Magnus. It's nice to see you again."

"Likewise," He said after a moment, waiting for her to take the chair across from him. Her silvery blond hair was half up, and a sleeveless red turtle neck fit flawlessly to her chest over black leather jeans.

The night before, Camille had not been willing to tell him about the phone call she'd received from _Cherrytree_; in fact, she declined that she'd ever even received a notice from the studio at all. There'd been no sugarcoating or pacifying—he'd been blunt, she'd been blunt, just to avoid any more contact then necessary. After a good amount of argument, Camille told him that they could meet before school to talk, but she wasn't guaranteeing anything.

Bitch.

But it was imperative that he got something out of her. The studio was clear that they wouldn't wait for more then a year to get back to you, and from fall to fall was one year—they had to talk to _someone_, even if to decline. Of course, Magnus _had_ considered calling the studio himself, but he didn't want to come on too strong if they really hadn't made a decision.

"How have you been?" asked Camille, taking a sip of coffee while stringing her bag over the chair. Magnus watched her every motion suspiciously, like she might lash out at any second—which he didn't doubt might happen.

"Alright,"

Camille huffed at the silence they unintentionally settled into; however, they awkwardly refused to lose eye contact. "Do you remember that little ceramic unicorn you use to hang on your Christmas tree every year?"

Magnus was taken aback. "Yes…?" He drew out his statement languidly, arching his pierced eyebrows in question.

"Do you remember that year when your father got angry—" Magnus sucked in a breath "And knocked the tree over? And all the ornaments broke?"

"What exactly are you getting at?" Magnus said through his teeth.

"You thought everything on that tree was broken, but the next day you found the little creature behind the fire place, and you were able to glue to horn back on to its head." She paused. "Everything about that unicorn is you, Magnus Bane. The whole world…_your_ whole world, you are that unicorn."

Magnus stared at her blankly, with a dry throat. He didn't respond right away in fear that it would crack. "You sure do like to talk in metaphors, don't you?"

"Have you forgotten what I'm like so quickly Magnus? It hasn't been that long we've last graced each other with our presences,"

"It's been _years_," Magnus said.

Camille sat up straighter in the chair, leaning forward on her elbows and sucking her red lips inward. "Listen, you want to you know about _Cherrytree_, don't you?" She asked, sounding aggravated.

"That's kind of why I called you in first place, if you didn't already know. _Not_ to have my childhood thrown in my face," He threw a sarcastic grin in to get to the point.

"So I assume you haven't discussed this dilemma with your little friends," She stated.

"It's not a dilemma," Magnus hissed. "It's a yes or no question. Did I or _didn't _I?"

Camille's lips, the way they shied into one of her plotting smiles, made him want to flinch back. No matter how hard you tried she always had the upper hand. "Yes. Yes, they called me, and yes, your wishes have been granted, Mr. Bane."

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Camille watched—regretfully with guilt—as Magnus skipped down the steps of the Starbucks, his face burning with enthusiasm. Lying wasn't one of her strongholds. She didn't like lying; she wasn't good at it, so why not just tell a hurtful truth? But this was necessary.

Sometimes, in order to understand the way the life works, and the way it wants you inside of it, you can't dodge things. Walking around a puddle of acid might get you to the other side of the street, but walking _through_ the acid got you there quicker. It might burn and break you, but it's a risk you have to take when the world is against you and you don't have that extra time.

Magnus was fragile, and on the way to his success he might shrivel and sour and shatter into a thousand tiny parts, but Magnus was also strong, and sugarcoating the truth might just help him climb to the top. One day, he would be thanking her.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Noise is the destruction of a barrier. When loud enough, noise can crack any wall, shatter any glass, and tear through any material without a single fragment lost. The world is made of noise, so why does it not break? Every voice and movement cause a sound—every clatter, every whisper, every kiss and moan and scream…the world contains those noises without somewhat of a shake.

This was Alec's proof that the world was not square, because in science, squares had walls that would burst apart when pressed against vibrations; but a sphere would only expand because its walls were a brick barrier…

Alec's brick barrier.

Being different was still not okay.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

From the second Alec walked into Alicante that morning, he immediately knew it was a mistake not to take the pills. He didn't exactly regret not taking them, since it gave him a sort of control over his body that he wouldn't normally have, but the fact that the small headache he'd begun to have in first block was now a mental pulsing that was taking over his concentration, he at least wished he had Advil with him.

"Um...cat boxes?" Alec scanned the page.

"Cat boxes?" Magnus motion for elaboration.

"They would...put a box, with a cat inside, on someone's chest. So the cat would have to crawl through the box and the person's stomach to survive." Alec explained.

Magnus made a face.

It was only the second day of school and Alec had learn one thing—that Ancient Civil. wasn't actually history about Aztecs and the Roman Empire. It was seventy percent learning about torture methods and thirty percent essays about things that they didn't actually study. Magnus and Alec were partnered to write an essay _about_ torture methods. Alec was reading and Magnus was writing.

"It apparently works with rats too,"

"You know, I don't think Chairman could dig through someone's intestines." said Magnus, scrawling across a piece of notebook paper, legs crossed, leather fabric scrunching uncomfortably against his crotch.

Alec thought up a reply, but without any sort of warning, the light bulbs in the florescent lights above him began to radiate, burning brighter then their watts should've allowed. Around the room, nobody seemed concerned, like it wasn't even happening.

"_Alexander_," Alec glanced up from the textbook. Magnus was scrawling across the notebook paper.

"What?" Magnus kept writing.

"What what?"

"You said my name," Magnus finally looked up. Alec was staring at him expectantly.

"No I didn't."

"Yes, you just—never mind," Alec continued to read, and Magnus spared a concerned looked before returning to the assignment.

"_That's right Alexander, let's play a little game—of hide and seek,_" This time Alec distinctly heard a women's voice. He internally begged for this not to happen, that he he was honestly making all of this up in his head—he technically was to begin with.

His vision blurred into a mass color, an initial part of the panic overload. He tried to keep his eyes uncrossed and his face void of emotion, hoping that nobody would notice the erratic beat of his heart. Fortunately the classroom was full of noise, either other students or the air conditioning, which for an expensive school was surprisingly cheap—so when he let out a small gasp, it wasn't as noticeable.

The walls, originally cream, were turning black at the edges, dripping with ichor; the plaster began to peel apart at the seams, curling inward, crusting and rotting, like old chipped metal. The light bulbs burst over head, scattering glass on every surface. This was worse than he anticipate—he falling off the edge in a place with no escape. _But no, no, this can't be—I thought that— _He gripped the pencil so tight that the next second it splintered in his hand, splitting down the center. In the corner of his eye, he saw Magnus looking at him with interest. He dug his fingernails into his palms, wishing for the visions to go away.

The room started to disappear at an alarming rate, as their was no more light. Desks faded and the voices of his classmates were buried underneath the pressure in his head. He was living his nightmares. He leaned his head down and rested his forehead on his fingers, willing everything to just stop.

Magnus, at this point, had no idea what was happening inside Alec's head. He watched from his side vision. Alec's eyes were a storm, focused on the text book although he wasn't reading it. His hands were somewhat shaking lightly, and the pencil had just snapped in his hand. If he could've done anything, he would have. Magnus knew that things like this happened sometimes. He knew that Alec had breakdowns and nightmares that he couldn't control, and there wasn't anything anybody could do until it passed. It was rare, but it happened.

But this time was a bit different, he quickly figured out by watching him. The way his breaths were shallower, and the way he wouldn't blink or close his eyes, the way he _not_ to show any expression. That was always the fastest giveaway. Even when Alec was shaky most times, it was always subtle, unnoticeable unless searched for, but right now Alec was in physical pain.

Magnus couldn't stand to see Alec in pain.

"Alec?" Magnus reached over the space between them and put a tentative hand on his arm, hoping to pull him out of his hold. Alec's arm was bare that day, no sweater or hoodie. When his hand made contact, Alec's arm, to the touch, felt almost...sandy? Chalked, caked, sticky_—_in a way. Before he could examine closer, Alec ripped his arm away with such force that it made Magnus fall back into his chair with a thud, uncharacteristically clumsy.

"Don't touch me," He whispered. Magnus was shaken for a moment, unsure what to do. At one glance towards the front of the room—they were luckily sitting in the back of the class—he saw that nobody had noticed the small display so far. If anybody found out about this than Alec would be living in Alicante Hell for the rest of the year. A secret that went through so much care to keep out of sight wouldn't be let out because of one incident.

Thinking on his feet, he stood and walked to the front of the room, where their teacher—a younger man—was making marks on a globe. He explained that Alec was having an unusually bad headache and wished to get a nurse's pass. First the teacher glanced over at Alec who's head was still ensnared in his hands, and then back at Magnus (probably at the glitter), and silently signed a slip of paper. Of course, Magnus wasn't taking Alec to any nurse. He'd had enough of those for the rest of his life.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Getting Alec out of the classroom was the tricky part, but they managed to stumble out without any damage or Alec going hulk on the rest of the room.

Alec was still in a daze, but the hallucinations had calmed quite a bit even though they. The room had been pitch black because of the lack of lighting, or at least to him, so when they exited the classroom the light of the courtyard/hallway was absolutely blinding.

The bathrooms at Alicante were exactly what you would expect at a private school. They were painted an olive green, with light yellow trimming. There were round sitting areas in the entrances with sinks on the opposite walls and stalls further back into the room. The mirrors above the sinks were oval with gold frames, making them look worth more than they were.

Magnus pulled Alec into the nearest one he could find and locked the door in case the bell rang before they left. Locking doors was strictly prohibited at Alicante, but that wasn't exactly his mind set at the moment.

Magnus stood at the door, watching Alec take a few steps in and throw his bag on a chair. He turned around and awkwardly crossed his arms. The two stood about a dozen feet away from each other, waiting for the other to speak.

"The lights didn't actually go out, did they?" said Alec at last, who's head was still pounding.

"No. That was all in your head, darling." Everything in his voice was cautious, unwilling. "What happened back there? I mean, they're never so..." Magnus didn't know what they were like, except on the outside. That could've been relatively simple compared to other happenings.

"Vivid?" Alec offered, trying to smile. It wasn't a topic well discussed. "No, they're always vivid. Just...the fact that it happened in public wasn't expected, so it came on harder than usual."

"But why? I thought..." _Why couldn't they talk about this without pausing and gaps?_

Alec was standing in front of one of the mirrors now, watching, and waiting. Magnus took a few steps closer.

"That the pills kept them away? They would—if I were actually taking them." Alec's hand gripped the sides of the sink. His confession sounded forced.

Magnus opened his mouth but no words came out. For some reason, he felt angry. He knew he needed to be more sympathetic towards Alec, but his condition was no excuse to treat his body like it didn't matter. His confusion was turned into final knowledge and that turned into disbelief. "Wait...what the _hell_?" Magnus stormed to his side. "It's no wonder that just happened! The whole point to taking the pills is so that _that_, doesn't happen. Why would you not—"

"Because nothing was happening!" Alec turned away from the mirror, and to over to his bag. He had to prove himself.

"Nothing was happening because you were taking them! Did you want to start hallucinating?" Magnus immediately felt guilty, but he couldn't bring himself to care if Alec wasn't going to care about his health.

"I stopped taking them because—I don't know, I thought that maybe I was, that I was, healing or something. That I wasn't some freak that has to be drugged just to stay sane. For the first time in months I finally felt a bit more normal; I wasn't having nightmares, I wasn't seeing things or hearing dead people or _whatever_. I just thought that maybe I was finished with all this. I was tired."

There was silence. "You aren't a freak." Magnus said firmly. "Hell, if anyone's a freak, it's me. My father is a murderer, I sleep with guys, and my best friend is in a band that can't keep a name for their lives. I cover myself in glitter to hide my family, and I won't eat meat because Chloe thinks that it's possessed by the souls of dead animals." Alec lifted his head. "Everyone is a freak in their own way, but that's okay, Alec. Being different is not a bad thing."

_Hypocrite_, Magnus thought. _I am such a hypocrite_.

Alec didn't talk, but Magnus saw the beginnings of understanding and apologies making the tops of his eyes shimmer with wetness.

"I don't think you're a freak."

"Good. Then why would you think that I would think that you were one?"

Alec sighed and moved away from Magnus, taking a seat on a plush velvet couch. Magnus followed and crossed his legs under him in a leather lounging sofa across from him.

"Hey, are you okay? Are the—the things gone?"

"For the most part. It's only been two days since I haven't taken anything. Four pills."

Magnus pondered the situation, tapping his glitter-painted nails against the leathery material of the sofa. "Come here, give me your bag." Alec already knew what Magnus was looking for—although he didn't want to face this, he didn't feel like he had a choice in the say. He picked up the tattered back pack and handed it to Magnus.

"Which pocket?"

"Second."

After digging around for a second, Magnus pulled the clear containers out of the bag. "Two?"

"There's, um, one for public emergencies and one for schedule." Alec rubbed the back of his neck and diverted his eyes to anywhere except for Magnus.

"How convenient," He popped off the top the one he'd never seen before—the one he assumed was for public, and shook them into his hand. "Is this really so bad? Just taking a pill twice a day?" he asked.

"When you've been doing it for twelve years, yeah, it kind of is." Magnus handed the purple pill to Alec. He drowned it down with his water bottle. Alec immediately started to feel the effects; the shutting down of his senses.

"Why don't we ever talk about this stuff?" Magnus wonder aloud.

"Because I'd rather pretend it isn't real and move on with my life."

"But it's part of you, Alec. And you are like my soul mate. This is the one thing I really don't know about you because we've ignored it for so long. I want to know every part of you."

Alec stuttered and repressed—rather successfully, which he was proud of—a blush that threatened his cheekbones, which was ridiculous because Magnus was his best friend and he was use to the quirky '_we're so close we could be in a relationship_' jokes. He moved to stand.

"The bell's going to ring soon," He replied simply. Magnus held him down with his eyes.

"Please Alec. Just one thing," He begged. "You can talk to me about anything, you know that." Magnus reassured when Alec stayed silent.

Alec took a deep breath and settled back into the chair across from Magnus. "The pills always worked." He started. "Until we got to Italy."

"Well, you've always had trouble in different places. Like, I remember the first time you spent the night at my house. You woke up at midnight screaming,"

Alec flinched, remembering the experience. "We were twelve, Magnus. And besides, they were always light then. But in Italy, the _things_…I'd always see shadows or hear things, or maybe my reflection would move…but the nightmares were never bad until then. I didn't tell Jace just because I didn't want to worry him, since it has happened before, that the pills would die down for while, but they never got stronger. I specifically asked for stronger pills when I ran out, and they're working a lot better, so I thought since everything was completely just _gone_, and there were no more nightmares, I thought that maybe I could stop taking them and things would still be okay."

"Alec..."

"I know. They hit me hard again."

Magnus hesitated. "What were in the nightmares?" Alec visibly back down and his confidence dropped.

"...I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because…you're in them," Magnus frowned but didn't say anything. What could that mean? _You're in them_?

. . . . . . . . . . . .

_Being different is okay_. Magnus just told him that being different is okay. That everybody and nobody are freaks. That the world is round and that grey exists in between everything. Did he believe it?

Not in the slightest.

* * *

_A/N: (_**Chapter edited on Oct.3.12)****  
**

**Does anyone think they know what's up with Alec? I think it's pretty obvious at this point, if you know medical stuff, but please leave your guesses in a review!**

xxShar [is thinking: _Jemima is Isabelle! Gorgeous, gorgeous girl._]


	4. Mask My Past

**[filler]  
CHAPTER FOUR****:_ Mask My Past__  
_**

When Alec was six, the universe exploded; it bended just a bit too far—snapped. He was lying in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep when a whisper of a touch brushed over his shoulders, sending a ripple up through his spine. He froze; didn't move; couldn't.

Four months later, after prodding and poking and interrogation and procedure, he was diagnosed with young schizophrenia. It was rare. The nurses explained to his small frame that less than one percent of the world's containment attracted this condition—that he stood out amongst the crowd. He was young—he didn't understand what that meant or what was going to happen to him. The only question that mattered to him was "_Am I going to die?_" No. Alec wasn't going to die. His parents had been reluctant to believe what the doctors were saying, to believe that their son would be different, pressed into a life of imperfection—that he would be able to splinter their image. No one knew what would happen after that. Everyone knew the predicament that would be forced on them: the depression, the—the visions (his parents refused to call them hallucinations), the risks of self-harm and suicide, that he would have to be cared for and be patient with.

As Alec grew up he learned exactly why he was treated different than his sister, and why he couldn't interact with the city as others did. He was told that he wasn't normal, that something in his mind was screwed over, that being different was not something to be proud if it shunned an image of pride away from the people who needed you to be sane. Alec was not sane.

Every night and every morning he took a pill. Sometimes they deluded his insanity and sometimes they enhanced the twisting virus. Sometimes he fell asleep wishing to be normal. But as the years came and passed, nothing changed. Then his mother had had enough of the coddling and sent him to therapy, to a hospital, sometimes for days at a time so she could return to her work without worrying about the well being of her 'son'.

Then, when he was ten years old, his father came home one night before he fell asleep and read him a story, created from his mind—something that Alec did not have the ability to do because of his _disease_. He told him about the angels and their fierce battles against evil demons and creatures of the dark. _Fearless_.

That's when his life begun. He was finally mature enough and old enough in his own head to realize that nobody cared about him unless he was the same as everybody else. He was thrown into a world of self-hatred and loathing, self-harm and bleeding. His sister stood by and watched as his blue eyes faded, as his reality ripped down the seams.

It stayed that way for six months. After those six months Alec finally heard word that he was getting a new brother. He assumed his new brother would arrive in the same way his sister did; in a hospital room with moans and painful cries after months and months and months, but days later a boy arrived on the doorstep of the elegantly placed Lightwood Mansion, fear in eyes and closed like a locked door. Weeks went on and the boy said nothing. Then Alec offered to show him the greenhouse in hopes of earning the blonde boy's trust. It worked. Jace was enthralled in the rooftop garden, telling Alec all about the flowers and their names and how they could be used to treat wounds and heal scars. _Heal._ They both opened up to each other that night and shared their underlying pasts. Jace had accepted that he was different and he had accepted that Alec was different.

That night, Alec did not tell Jace about how he still believed different was not okay. His entire life he had been told and taught certain things, certain religions and behaviors and viewpoints—things like what matters and what to let go of. Those things are hard to forget.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The wrought iron gate enclosed lawn—sprinkled with bright green grass and luminous flowers (still blooming, despite it was fall)—was blaring with the noises of talking, all the sound blurring and crossing so that you couldn't listen to one conversation as a whole but cut out bits and pieces to create a whole new topic. Katy Perry was blasting from overhead speakers.

Through the glass walls, Jace could see into the cafeteria, a hellish hole that held an impossible escape—the _EXIT_ door on the other side of the large room. That's why Jace didn't eat inside, in the cafeteria. It was too crowded, too loud, and while the lawn was rather loud as well it wasn't as deafening. He watched with little interest as people shove through the lines, dropping red lunch trays, spilling food, falling over. Of course, in ten minutes after the hectic pandemonium was over, the noise would recede greatly.

Jace's eyes darted from table to table (or some blankets that were thrown hastily on the grass to avoid "taking" a council member's chair) through the few large dangling willows, searching faces and hair colors. Yesterday hadn't been one of his finest days—after walking away from Magnus and everyone else, he couldn't stop the little redhead's voice from popping into his head all day. It was just one sentence, over and over and over again.

"_…__adopted by the Lightwood's at ten years old due to an abusive household, can be an inconsiderate asshole at times, and goes through girls faster than money…_" Was that really how people saw him? Well yes, it was partially true, as he _had_ been adopted by the Lightwoods from Valentine Morgenstern when he was ten years old. It was bad enough that he had to go to school with his fake step-brother every day _and_ his cousin, but being verbally reminded of his actions kind of hit home.

He didn't sleep with girls for the pleasure or be noticed, but to get his mind off of things that he didn't really want to remember. He'd had that thrown unintentionally in his face.

"What are you looking for?" Jace refocused on reality and glanced back in front of him. Alec was swinging his feet over the holey red table with a tray full of cheesecake and carrots. Jace had never understood Alec's diet—although the food at Alicante couldn't exactly qualify as normal high school cafeteria food; they hired only the finest chefs and actually fed the kids digestible and flavorful things.

Alec had light circles under his eyes, which hadn't been there this morning, and his fingertips held a barely noticeable shaking that not even Jace would have seen had he not been on alert earlier. He didn't question this, as he wasn't sure about what the answer would be, and at this time of day (nearly one) he wasn't ready for seriousness. A few dozen feet away Magnus stood what looked like giving directions to a few lost students; the glitter surrounding his eyes burned blinding bright in the shine of the sun.

"The new girl,"

Alec looked at him studiously. "There are hundreds of new girls, Jace. An entire class of them even."

"Short. Red hair. Kind of cute, in a, uh," Jace diverted his eyes. "Button nose kind of way,"

"Button nose? Is that really your type?" said Alec cordially.

"I didn't say I was interested in her. I'm just trying to—" He stopped. Over on the opposite side of the quad was Clary. She seemed to be writing, or drawing, leaned back against the trunk of a tree. Her legs were crossed sideways on the grass, and her hair was pressed back from the bark, making it stick up in every which way direction. Next to her, Simon was chatting aimlessly, probably about whatever was going on in that notebook.

Jace leaned forward on his elbows. "Her," He nodded towards the couple.

"The girl with Simon?"

Jace saw the twinkling of doubt in Alec's eyes, as he was always an open book, but there was something else there, something that he couldn't place exactly. A long time ago, Alec would've cringed if Jace brought up the topic of girls. Now, he shrugged it off. Jace wasn't sure if this was because his brother was maturing about the subject or if he was _literally_ moving on…

Magnus appeared next to Jace, sitting down and crossing his legs like the queen he was. He tossed a knowing smile to Alec who didn't return it.

"What are we talking about?" He asked, popping a can of cherry coke.

"The next girl Jace is going to terrorize."

"Ooh, sounds spicy," Magnus said, removing the tight blazer he sported.

"I am not going to _terrorize _her. I was simply wondering about her…capability to…" Jace trailed off, unsure of where to go.

"Sixty-nine?" Magnus offered with a shrug. Jace flushed an unhappy pink—not attractive against golden skin.

Jace pushed his tray back. "And people say my head is in the gutter," He muttered.

"You're right," Magnus agreed. "Let's talk about me."

"What about you?"

"I went to see Camille this morning,"

Jace's mind went into overload.

"Why the hell would you see Camille?" Alec asked. "Last I heard you two hated each other,"

"That's true, but you see—"

The circumstances could fall under anything. Two people interacting with each other did not mean that they were plotting or backstabbing. That was just his panic talking. But if Camille did tell Magnus about _Cherrytree_, and how he was suppose to tell him, then he was screwed in a million different places. Or maybe they weren't talking about _Cherrytree _at all; maybe they had discussed the nature of global warming or—

"And really the entire conversation fell over me being a unicorn, and I guess I understand that to an extent, but really?"

He needed to calm down. It wasn't in his nature to be uptight or worrisome. He was a Herondale for god's sake—life was lived for him, not against him.

"—and I got the job! So as soon as I call to get details I will be the new face of _Cherrytree Enterprises_,"

Alec's congratulations was drown out by his own inner thoughts. He got the job? A million different questions circulated in his head. All of his conclusions came down to she was lying, one way or another.

"Uh, I would call anyways. Just to confirm that you even got it," He said, cutting in.

Magnus looked at him questionably. "And why would I do that?"

"I just mean, you said it yourself. Camille doesn't have a very big soft spot for you. There isn't any reason she _wouldn't_ possibly be lying to you."

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Freak. It was the word that Alec had used to describe himself. Freak? Please, Magnus thought; freak is unconventional, iridescent, carnival, almost trivial. Freak is strange and variegate and caprice. Freak is none of the things that Alec was. Alec was paranoia, control, real. But Magnus? Magnus was all of those things. He was full of rain-lit fires and gasoline oceans. In fact, in eighth grade he had come to school one day to find the word _Freak_ written on his locker in rainbow markers. He was a _freak_ing rainbow—colored and glittered, sparked with dilemma.

Freak was when you came home from school to find your mother stabbed and your father with a knife in his hand. Freak was when your aunt is a real estate agent and studies ancient witchcraft in her spare time. Freak was the name Magnus Bane. _Great destruction_.

Magnus remembered watching Alec leave the restroom earlier that day, how a piece of hair had fallen in front of his eyes, and how he so desperately had wanted to reach over and brush it out. But Alec was intentional with all of his motions. He did what he did to _not_ be noticed. Jesus, he needed to get his feeling for this boy out of his head. Freak.

Magnus climbed the rickety stairwell to apartment _483_, to the door that read _BANE_ on a brass nameplate. He sighed in relief, being home finally. He lived in Williamsburg, in an industrial neighborhood built originally for warehouses and factories. It was a good half hour drive from Alicante, which was located in the Upper East Side. Magnus enjoyed the loneliness of the drive though. It was the one time he could focus on himself and not worry about his appearance or attitude.

"Chloe, I'm back!" Magnus called into the entryway. His boots clicked on the wood floor as he made his way into the flat. Most people would take one glance at the run down living room and call it trash, but Magnus preferred to say that it had _character. _The walls were a silver brown brick, chipped at the corners; random pieces of furniture were thrown everywhere, along with giant plants and hanging ivy. Behind the white faux-leather sofa was the kitchen, connected with a bar.

Chloe was legally his guardian, genetically his aunt. She took him in when she was just twenty four, beginning her Broadway career, which effectively ended after that; after _the incident_ he'd really had nowhere to go except for here (Brooklyn, which wasn't his ideal living situation) unless he wanted to move back to Indonesia to live with his grandmother. Chloe took him in when he was ten years old, taking him to the small apartment from his parent's previous mansion in Manhattan. She didn't treat him like a child though—_her_ child—but like her equal and friend; she was light and carefree accepted him for exactly what he was. Now, money was tight. She worked almost nonstop, which evidently was doing nothing because it was New York, and nobody in New York wants to buy houses when prices are so high. Therefore, no business. Magnus did appreciate her though. She held him together, and he held her together.

"In here!"

Magnus followed the voice into her work room. He peered through the door and turned his head. She was sitting in a plush brown office chair next to a rotting wooden bookshelf, half full of records and half full of history books, searching for a title. Magnus was often asked if Chloe was his sister or girlfriend, because she looked so young—her yellow blonde hair was often pulled back into a high bun, showing off high cheekbones and wide blue eyes. Her lips were flat and her skin was white, and she was shorter than him by almost an entire foot. Needless to say, she was his father's sister and not his mother's, who was half Dutch half Indonesian.

"Hey," He greeted, leaning up against the door frame.

"Hi. How was school?" She asked, so obviously distracted by whatever she was working on.

"Fine—I just wanted to clear Friday with you?"

"Magnus, you've been clearing Fridays since seventh grade. I have a client that evening. I'll be gone, promise."

His lips tugged. "Oh, and uh, do you have the _Cherrytree_ number lying around anywhere?" Chloe looked up. He couldn't compare her eyes to Alec's, as they weren't swirling oceans, but rather the color of the sky on a clear day; breathtaking.

"Why? Have they gotten back to you yet?"

Magnus pressed his lips. "Maybe,"

She shook her head, causing blond curls to fall from the tight ponytail. "Try the hall desk."

"'Kay, thanks."

And sure enough, the _Cherrytree_ office number was written with a purple gel pen on a post-it note inside the mahogany drawer. He felt the odd capturing feel of apprehension rise in his chest, the clench of his heart.

He walked the small distance down the hall and kicked the bottom of the door open with his foot. He dropped his indie bag next to the door as he entered. The ceiling was arched with straight angles, made of gray wood, and the floor, originally orange, was now faded to an ugly shade of brown. The bed was pushed right up against the wall window like someone didn't have the space—nor the time—to make it look nice, but in an strange way it looked neat, with a thin piece of stringy fabric canopying over it. Standing next to it was the tall bookshelf socked mile high with books and old artifacts that Chloe had given to him because she ran out of room of her own.

Magnus ran a hand through his hair before sitting down on the edge of the bed, pulling one leg up underneath him. He played with the Blackberry in his hand, turning and flipping it, before holding up the number and dialing it into the phone. His finger hesitated over the call button.

But what was the point in stalling? Eventually he would have his answer, rather that be sooner or later, did it really matter?

* * *

_A/N:_ **I'M NOT DEAD! I apologize for my lack of updating. I've had this chapter done for an entire week, but I just couldn't bring myself to publish it as I couldn't find a way to fix the crapiness. As you can see, I have the self confidence of a lobster. Anyways, next chapter should be up by Thursday, and I think I'll like it a whole lot better than this. Thanks for bearing with me.  
**

xxShar [is thinking: _It's ironic how the movie Suicide Room is suppose to promote not killing yourself, but the end is so depressing it makes you want to kill yourself..._]


	5. The Flood In My Lungs

**CHAPTER FIVE: _The Flood In My Lungs_**

Alcohol is release; forget and revive. Jace got drunk for the first time when he was thirteen, after breaking into Robert Lightwood's hidden stash under the staircase and finding an unopened bottle of wine. Little did he know it was the wine bottle that he and Marsye had had since their wedding and were planning to open it on their ten year anniversary. Needless to say, the next morning his adoptive parents decided that his hangover was not enough of a punishment (or the memory loss; as to the present he still doesn't have any recollection what things he experienced that night)—they made him get a job...at a bar, so that he would know how drunkards really lived, sitting at a bar for twelve hours drowning out their misery.

The bar owner was a friend of Robert's and agreed to let him work there—well, really just standing in the corner watching since he couldn't legally serve drinks until he was sixteen. Unexpectedly, Jace turned out to liking the job—the diversity of the people who came in, and how he could interact with them in different ways to see how they responded. When he was sixteen he had surprised his parents by actually applying for a real position, as the bartender. Obviously, he got it.

Now he worked weeknights every other week; he knew the regulars, had friends behind the counter, knew how to make every alcoholic drink there was, and got discounts—which worked to his advantage since some of the regulars were Alicante students with fake IDs.

It was Thursday night, and it was a slow one. Costumers wandered in and out until it was almost midnight, the end of his shift, and it was completely empty except for the rest of the employees. Jace began to wash down the counters, counting the clockwise circles until it was like counting sheep. _Just one second_, Jace promised, closing his eyes and laying his head down on the bar counter. _Just one…_

_Jace woke to noise. He hadn't intended to fall asleep in the first place, but hey, when life gives you lemons… There was yelling in the background. He turned to the exit door, and sure enough there were two men arguing with extreme volume, so loud in fact, that Jace couldn't make out what they were saying. One man was older with no hair and the other seemed to be a bit younger, with a few laugh lines and wrinkles, messy brown hair and glasses sitting on his nose._

_"Hey, Jace right?" Jace looked back. The redhead, Clary, was standing in front of the bar, watching him with a smile. His heart seemed to leap at her sight. "Sorry about the noise. My almost step-dad has a few anger issues."_

_"Well, you might need to tell him to take it somewhere else. He'll distract me from work,"_

_"Would it be better if something else distracted you?"_

_"Why—" But suddenly she leaned across the bar on her hands, placing her own lips across his. It was a strained kiss, because of the height difference, but a kiss nonetheless. At first his eyes were wide in shock, but as he relaxed he began to sink into it. He leaned down a bit more, grabbing her wrists and pulling her small body up onto the bar._

_Clary wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. It escalated quickly, turning into a battle of teeth, tongues, and lips. Jace ran one hand down her chest, only to bring it back with a fistful of her floral shirt. He pulled away to trail a series of sloppy open mouthed kissed down her neck. He sucked carefully, purposely, on the joint between her collar and shoulder bone, bringing a quiet moan from her lungs._

_He went lower, and lower, and lower still, until—_

Jace gasped awake, eyes wide opened. He glanced down. _Damn it_…

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The black room was a haven. It was his get-away, his escape. It was the one place that nobody could find him, torment him. Alec discovered the room when he was fifteen. He was supposed to go into the basement to find a file for his father. In the basement there was another door. Curiosity had overcome him and he needed to know what was behind that door. It led to a hallway, and at the end of the hallway was another door—this one was locked, with a heavy chain tied around the handle. He had to know what was in there. He found a hammer and snapped the chain on the third pounding. Inside the room was nothing. A small twelve by twelve room, with white walls and a tarp taped down to the floor. He pulled up the plastic and found cement flooring, like a garage.

The room enthralled him in with a strange want—to be alone. This room was empty, like himself, and all it needed was a bit of fixing up. It was something he could do while being utterly alone, not having to bother with the interference of his family members. The next day he had come down to the room again, this time with the brightest standing lamp he could find and a bucket of pitch black paint. He locked the door from the inside and dyed the once shinning walls to the color of his sanity.

Three—almost four—years later, the room still stayed undiscovered. Colored bean-bags littered the floor, neon paint overlapped the black, and dim yellow lights hung from the ceiling. It was his paradise to the hellish reality he lived in. For the short amount of time he could spend down here, away from the people that wanted him to pretend (which was all he could do—pretend), he could keep and protect his own secrets. Like the artwork he kept in a small chest, or the college brochures to design institutes all over the world; the maps and the hidden journal pages that wrote his life for him, the pink lips put on the ceiling with glow in the dark stars. A sanctuary.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

_Sometimes, when life gives you lemons, you get stuck. You freeze. Maybe the lemons were rotten, or maybe the lemons were too ripe. Or maybe they hit you with such force that you trip, stumble, fall—sometimes these things happen, and there's nothing you can do about it. The impact of the crash will knock you off of your feet, hurt you, and make you feel the pain you never have before. But if you hadn't felt that, seen that, torment, then you would have never understood why it happened, why you were the one singled out._

_Or sometimes, you lay under the pile of lemons._

_Magnus never knew this—he hadn't known that he was frozen in a compact stone box of too ripe lemons, until he tipped the scale in the wrong direction._

_"Mom?" He shut the door as quietly as he could, but couldn't stop the echo of the lock clicking throughout the large and empty entrance space. It was dark, past eleven, and all the lights were out. The stairs on either side of him were much more imitating at night, like he didn't even know where they led, even though he'd lived here for his whole life—the overly fancy red and white manor in the recluse district of Manhattan. _

_Magnus guessed by the light and the no response that his parents were asleep; probably not in the same bed, as they'd been fighting for the past week. It worried Magnus. He didn't let it show, but his parent's argument unnerved him, since they always fought about petty and inconvenient things that didn't matter._

_Magnus set step on the twirling left staircase, running a hand through his hair. It was short, tipped with white. He wanted to grow it out. Magnus considered himself mature for his age. His parents didn't really monitor him, so he had access to things that children didn't—things that should have made him cringe and look away, but really just made him snicker and judge._

_He began to climb the stairs, one slow step at a time, hoping not to disturb anyone trying to sleep. When his hand came into contact with the marble railing, however, he jerked back, almost tripping over his feet. His hand came away sticky. Due to the lack of light, he couldn't tell what it was, or the color, but he could see that the substance was darker than the white handle, or the tan of his hand. It was splattered over the railing sporadically, leaving patches darker than others. Magnus looked down at his feet. The liquid was beneath was as well. He hesitantly brought his hand up to his nose. He breathed in the scent. It was salty, metallic, not appeasing at all. His stomach flipped._

_Was this…was this blood? He didn't dare wipe his hand on his jeans, from the tightening in his chest. He slid his string backpack down his arm and set it near the wall, beginning to climb the steps once again. He forced his legs to move. He was suddenly at very unease. Everything in his gut was telling him to continue on to his bedroom and deal when the sun was up, but he couldn't help that horrid sense of dread from rising in his heart. _

_He was finally at the top of the stairs. There were two doors; one to the hall that would take him to his room, or the other that would lead to the sitting room and kitchen. Under that door a thin line of light appeared. Right under that was a stain, on the floor. It was red. Magnus found this hard to believe because his mother refused to have any form of dirt in her house ever._

_He walked to the door, knocking softly on the door. His heart began to race. A strange smell hit him. It was an awful smell, like the smell of rotting or decay. Or blood. _

_Behind the door a laugh sounded. A deep, cackling laugh, and then a voice. His father was speaking. It was…_ _psychotic, creepy. He couldn't make out any words, but his stomach twisted once more. He pushed the door open. It creaked, exactly what Magnus didn't want to happen. He peaked into the room, fingers closing around the edge, trying to not make himself known. However, the room was empty. From where he was, he could see the sofa's and coffee table, and behind those the island that brought him into the kitchen. Dim lights hung from the ceiling, shining on the walls and reflecting it around the area. It all looked so relatively normal._

_Except the—Oh. This is where things get bad, Magnus thought. This is where I should just leave the room and call the police. After, all, I am only a child. A pretty damn grown up child. His eyes trailed from the pool of red to the trail it made, distinctly dried with the imprint of a body; it led to behind the island. Against his entire will, his conscious that he knew was right and wrong; he pushed the door open more and put one foot in the room. The smell was worse now. _

_"Mom? Dad?" He called. In the light now, he could that, indeed, blood was smeared across his hand. Magnus wandered into the room, flipping the other light switch so that he could see more clearly. Before venturing further, he was sure to leave the door wide open. Anything could lie in the kitchen, and anything could lie beyond it. He needed for quick escape._

_He was almost there now. He avoided the thick liquid, and could now almost see around the corner of the island. He wasn't sure he wanted to._

_"Get out," Magnus heard. He turned at his father's voice. He was in the shadows, wedged between the space of the refrigerator and the pantry entrance._

_"Dad?" His eyes saw his father over. Iskandar Bane was not a thin man; he was heavily muscled and had a shaved head. Now, however, he looked more like a homeless person, with ripped jeans, splattered with what Magnus saw to be blood, and no shirt. What Magnus saw next though…the knife in his hand, arm covered elbow deep with blood, eyes gleaming yellow in the dark. Magnus swung around in panic._

_His mother, once a magnificent beauty, was on the ground behind the island, bleeding from slashes, holes, skin ripped opened, missing on some parts of her body. A mindless numbness clouded his vision. Colors, dots. He didn't move—couldn't, he couldn't—_

_"Get out of here. NOW!" Magnus barely heard him. Everything around him seemed to fade away. All he could hear was the blood pulsing behind his ears, his heart pumping rapidly. All he could see was the dead—or dying—women in front of him. All he could feel was nothing._

_. . . . . . . . . . . ._

Magnus breathed in deep, pushing those thoughts from his mind; it was hard, as the blood-stained image was what always lay behind his eyelids. Instead, he tried to direct his attention to the chlorine filled tile room, loud noises and voices echoing off the walls. In the center was the Alicante competitive pool—bigger than average, and the lanes white, not black.

It was Friday, finally, and Magnus couldn't help but feel relieved. It'd been half eventful week, or as eventful as the first week of school could be, and luckily he'd avoided any big issues that tended to come up—like last year, when Will had somehow gotten away with digging up the school's water pipes and using them to break out his car windows.

He sighed and leaned back on the metal bench, watching the swimmers with little interest. They were nice to look at, sure, and some of them had _very_ pretty chest (as brought upon by the constant working out) but they were all too much alike. They all held the same...sameness. Most of the guys Magnus dated, or hell, even the girls, tended to be round—not in a weight kind of way, but they were always more muscle than bones; it caused a smoothness that Magnus didn't really find attractive. But he was stuck with what he had to work with, which wasn't much. Not many guys were openly gay at Alicante, which is where bars and gay clubs came in handy. But Alec...

Alec wasn't like most guys he dated. Alec was all angles—jutting shoulder blades, defined hips and collar bones, orchestrating a lanky thin frame topped with a sharp chin and hallow cheeks. It was an ultimate turn on; strong yet delicate, weak but dominating, control mixed with the want to explorer the unknown—or in this case, romantic indiscretion.

It was all a project Magnus held very much interest in working on. Of course, not being able to confirm that Alec even liked boys was a definite problem, something he had been working on since they were freshman—when Alec (who's good looks had blossomed rather early) had turned down all eight girls (_senior _girls) that asked him to homecoming. Now, Magnus didn't know much about how the minds of straight men worked, but taking what he knew from Jace, he knew that most normal guys would jump for the chance to date an older girl. Alec kept doing it, every year, turning down more and more of them. Magnus was surprised that nobody else had suspected anything.

Magnus watched Alec from where he was, something that he'd been trying not to do so he wouldn't be captivated by the flex of every muscle. Alec was propelling through the water at an incredible speed, goggle-less, his hair stuck to his forehead in every which way direction.

Magnus' attention was spared from the water cascading down his best friend's neck when he heard his name being called.

"Magnus, it's been a while man," Magnus watched as Bat Wright sat down next to him, rubbing his hands between his knees. Bat differed greatly from Magnus; he was shorter, with broad shoulders and packed abs, his hair was shaggy but not long, and a sandy brown. They probably looked strange from a distance, one sparkly and one tan. Magnus had seen him leave the pool a while earlier, but he was still dripping wet, wiping his chest down with a towel. It was, as said, a nice chest, and Magnus was suddenly very glad that they wore actual swim trunks and not Speedos. Bat clapped his lower back, catching him by surprise and sending him forward. The only thing that kept him from tripping off the bench was by grasping the cool metal.

"Bat. Forceful as ever I see," Magnus teased with a grin. Once upon a time they almost had a relationship—before playing spin the bottle at a party. After that Bat had claimed he was one hundred percent straight. "Why are hiding over here instead of playing with your swim jockeys?"

"Oh, come on. You don't give yourself enough credit. Everyone I know either wants to be you or be _with_ you."

"But not you," Magnus pointed.

"No. I'm content where I am. Not everybody needs spotlight to shine, Bane." And what a very true statement that was.

Magnus looked back to Alec. "How's Eve?"

Bat's lips spread with apprehension, a small _clicking_ noise coming from behind his teeth. "Oh man, she wants to get _married_,"

"Really? Little sophomore Eve wants to tie the knot? Are you going to?"

"I don't know. I mean, I'm graduating and she's still going to be here, you know? Besides, I don't know if we have that kind of commitment yet,"

Magnus leaned back on his hands, tossing his back to look at the sky through the clear ceiling. "Commitment, huh? Do you need one of those in a relationship?"

Bat looked at him oddly. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot,"

"Are you and Alec, like, seeing each other or something?" Magnus laughed out loud, not wasting time trying to make his surprise disappear. Was his constant flirting too obvious?

"_Alec? Our _Alec? Alec is straighter than a pole. There's no way that we would be…" He wiggled his fingers, hoping that they said 'making magic'—just for effect.

"Well, I wouldn't be too sure about that."

Magnus dug for more. "What do you mean?"

"I'm saying that locker rooms are awkward for him. Have you ever had gym with him before?" Magnus shook his head. "He tends to skip showering and change in the bathrooms. He's always first on the field,"

"Maybe he's just uncomfortable with his body,"

"Then why is he here? I mean, he's half naked and completely soaked. What's to be uncomfortable about?" They were quiet for a moment, both watching Alec swim the lanes, back and forth, forth and back, every stroke of his arms sending him a bit forward.

Bat suddenly stood. "Look, you wanna ride? I was just about to head anyways. It's already five,"

"No thanks. I'm Alec's ride actually. Jace took off without him,"

"Alright, I'll catch you later then," He watched Bat head into the locker room.

Magnus sighed—just more reasons to add to his titled list 'My best friend is gay'; that was a real thing. He kept it under the loose tile in his bathroom. The only person who knew about his obsession was Chloe, who had one day been cleaning his room and found a heart with Alec's name in the middle. She was completely against it; she always said that if he valued their friendship he would let it go. Love wasn't something you let go.

Unless of course, Alec _was_ actually straight.

* * *

_A/N:_ **Esh, so many italics in this chapter. And sorry for the shortness. I'll make up for it next chapter, promise—which I should actually have out earlier this time because half of it's already written.**

**QUESTION: Does anybody know the exact pronunciation of Maryse's name?  
**

_**Sidenote: Eve is/was Bat's girlfriend in City of Ashes._**  
**

xxShar [is thinking: _I really shouldn't be watching Misfits..._]


	6. My Lips Are Sealed

**CHAPTER SIX: _My Lips Are Sealed  
_**

The zombie's head exploded. _26 x 3_ appeared on the screen.

"Damn it. How do you _always_ manage to win?" Jace whined, throwing the controller behind his head. He heard the thump of it when it landed on the sofa. The two of them, Simon and Jace, were sprawled out over the carpeted floor in the media room of the Lightwood Mansion. It was all white, the floor, the walls, the furniture; the only contrast was the polished black widescreen in the wall, and the game console under it.

"Because I've been playing this game since I was in first grade, whereas when you were in first grade you only wanted to know what all the swear words meant."

"Why would your parents let you play M rated games when you were, what, six? Seven?" Simon was still focused on the screen, choosing the next level which Jace had no interest in continuing.

"My dad never really cared. Once he died my mom just stopped trying to stop me. She knew it wouldn't do any good."

They had stopped apologizing for their messed up childhoods a long time ago. Everyone knew Jace was adopted because of Valentine, everyone knew Simon's dad had had a heart attack; everyone knew Magnus's father had killed his mother, and everyone knew Alec was mentally disturbed. Well…everyone being the four of them. Sure, they were all sorry about it, but in the end they just had pretty screwed up lives—nothing was going to change that.

"Anyways," Jace was brought out of his thoughts as Simon shut off the Xbox, silencing the room. "I got to go. It's almost six. Alec's probably going to be back soon."

Jace craned his neck as Simon stood, sticking the math assignment he'd been trying to work on (unsuccessfully) into his bag.

"What about Magnus'? I thought we were going to drive over together,"

"I'm meeting Clary. Apparently her mom's going to be featured at some big art gallery opening tonight. I promised I'd go with her,"

"But its Friday," complained Jace. "We always do Fridays at Magnus's,"

"Next week. Besides, haven't you ever wanted to do something on Friday night like the rest of the universe?"

"I'm pretty sure most teenagers don't go to _gallery openings_ on their weekends,"

Jace was thrown back into the night before; falling asleep, dreaming completely out of the blue about Clary, kissing her, touching her. He'd known her for what, a week now? Five days? And he'd only talked to her once. But…he couldn't get this girl out of his mind.

He needed to get drunk.

He rolled onto his stomach and dug his elbows into the plush carpet. "Wait—you said you were meeting Clary?"

Simon turned back, flipping his hair out of his face. "Yeah, why?"

Jace pushed every excuse out of his head. "I'm coming with you,"

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The night was falling over New York City. Wars raged under the streets of Brooklyn, false lights giving the sense of day, bodies entwined, glitter and lust raining down on the colors of victims. Music too loud to be noticed made the concrete vibrate. But above, every person could incept the dreary atmosphere. Dark clouds loomed overhead as the sun reached the end of its purpose, and the settling turned the once shining backdrop into a macabre horror scene.

Now, the city only needed a villain and a superhero.

Alec needed a superhero.

As he approached Magnus' flat, an eerie faculty assembled inside his head. Thunder boomed above him. His sister use to say that he had a sixth sense, one for seeing bad things before they occurred. It unnerved him, to the core, but right now he almost thought that was true. Something…something wasn't right. The way the abandoned complexes that he passed seemed to stare at him, the way the taxi driver had kicked him out after they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, the way the air kept getting thicker.

Of course, he was prone to hallucinate every now and then.

Friday nights had become a sort of tradition among the guys. It'd started in seventh grade, on Magnus's birthday. He'd wanted to have a sleepover with his closest friends, so that's what happened. The four of them never stopped though—week after week they showed up at his doorstep.

But tonight Jace and Simon weren't going to be there. After Magnus dropped off Alec, he'd saw that Jace and Simon had taken the car somewhere, leaving a vague note in the kitchen reading _'Have fun with Magnus. See you tomorrow_'. It was making him nervous, his hands were shaking. It really wasn't the thought of being alone with Magnus, because they had been before, but the prospect of being with Magnus period. What if he had the dreams again? What if—

Never had Alec actually thought he would have romantic feelings toward Magnus. Sure, Magnus was attractive, and well, _attractive_, but...what did he feel, really? Magnus was his best friend, they knew each other inside and out, but lately, especially because of the dreams, he wonder, what would it be like, to love unconditionally? To fall asleep in the arms of someone else, to the soundtrack of magic and lust—different things that he didn't know how to feel.

But the one thing that ruled him over—what did kissing feel like? How did you...kiss someone? From the movies he'd seen, it looked quite difficult. Something he wasn't cut out for.

There was a lightning strike, not far from where he was. From the short distant between the thunder and the electricity, he knew the rain was about to start.

Luckily he turned the last corner onto Magnus's street. The odd thing he saw was that he had not seen a single person on the entire block. It was dead silence, save for the thumping beneath his feet from the sewage parties. Usually these parties reigned above and under, but tonight? It was empty.

He ducked under the metal awning and found the box with the numbers _483_; he held down the buzzer.

There was a crashing noise above him. Startled, he looked up. The metal panel was rising and falling—rain was pouring around him. There was the cackling sound of the intercom. Someone was speaking, but he couldn't focus on that.

He suddenly didn't understand anything; it was like his mind had been short-circuited and needed to be rewired. Everything around him was set in fast-forward, and he was standing motionless in the middle of it all. He pressed his back against the cold door, watching the rain hit the pavement with splattering shatters. He swore he heard thunder through the deafening storm, but it wasn't thunder. It was much more precise, together and not scattered. It was...

—Gunshot. It was a gunshot. Somehow, he could hear pounding feet on the stairwell inside.

He looked down at his feet, at the same time reaching back and pressing the buzzer once more. Why was Magnus taking so long? Water was splashing onto his shoes, soaking the bottoms of his too-long jeans. One side of his duffel was damp.

He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars.

The door disconnected with his back, causing him to fall backwards with a yelp. He fell into Magnus.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

"It was probably just thunder," Magnus told him, after they were both locked in the safety of Magnus' bedroom. Magnus was crisscrossed on his bed, dressed in silky looking black basketball shorts and a black tank top—his hair was still spiked though, but only coal surrounded his eyes. The glitter was vacant. It was toned down, even for Magnus, which usually meant he planned on staying in. Which they were. Where would they go? His portable iron sewing machine sat in front of him, humming quietly as Magnus weaved his thin fingers back and forth, one foot sticking out to press the peddle. Alec sat on the floor with his head resting on the edge of the mattress, trying not to focus on anything—the material Magnus was working with was bright green, and he didn't really want to know what it was going to turn into.

"I know. It just...seemed so real," He replied. Magnus could tell Alec was back in his head again, something that was happening a lot lately. But Jace had said it himself, that Alec was becoming more distant and closed. Not that he was never secretive before, but now it just seemed an extremity.

He didn't bother questioning where the other two dimwits were, as he really didn't care. He was glad to have Alec all to himself.

"If it was a gun, I wouldn't be surprised," Alec said. "I mean, this isn't exactly the best part of New York." Magnus didn't reply. He glances back at the window. The sky was completely black, and he had a feeling the artificial light from the fan wouldn't last long—storms like this tended to cause large power outages all across the city. Outside the wind was whistling, the rain coming down unforgiving. With a sigh Alec leaned back into the bed; the mattress was worn, old but soft, and provided the relaxation he needed. Magnus had some odd British singer wailing about their broken heart. Something about tape and breaking things, he wasn't sure.

"So," Magnus said. There was a click, and the buzz of the machine stopped. More rustling, and then he felt something hit the back of his head. It was the green stuff; he still wasn't sure what it was, but Magnus was pulling it from the threads, apparently finished with it at the moment. "I called _Cherrytree_, like Jace suggested." Magnus leaned over the edge and rested his head on his elbows. It was bit too close for Alec's comfort.

"You did? What'd they say?"

"That Jace was right," He grimaced.

"So you're not…"

"Oh, I am. Just not in the way you'd think,"

"And which way is that?"

"_Producer's assistant_."

A flash of annoyance crossed over Magnus' features.

"Didn't you apply for design?"

"Exactly; somehow they got my application mixed up. I could've had this job months ago if Camille had told me."

"But you don't want this job,"

"No. I don't. Which is why I'm withdrawing—"

"Wait a second," Alec held up a finger. "Isn't the producer the, uh, head of the company?"

Magnus tilted his head questioningly. "I guess. He does schedules, overlooks stocks, things of the like,"

"So, you get in good with him," he stated. "Then you can—"

"Alec, I know what you're about to say, but it's not worth the breath. I would take coffee runs, organize paperwork, and hold phone calls. That kind of thing doesn't interest me."

"But you could—"

"Alec," Magnus stopped him. "No. Sorry, but no."

"I just want to help," Alec said, looking up at him at little sadly. "I know you've been looking forward to this,"

Magnus shook his head. "It doesn't matter. There are other jobs."

"I remember though, last year when you heard about the opening—you got really excited. It was like…I remember your face. It was like Christmas or something,"

Magnus met Alec's eyes; the blue shined almost like gold. Magnus knew Alec was trying to make him feel better but really he was rehashing old memories that he didn't want nor need to see. But he always did, see them, burned in the back of his mind, implanted there to keep on the track he needed to be—sane. It was hard to control the sanity of two people.

He huffed and looked back down at the floor. The blood was starting to flow out of his brain now and his eyes felt heavy; the blood was pressing against them. He rolled over onto his back, away from Alec, to regain the circulation.

"Remember the first time I met you? Your mom wanted to meet my mom so that she knew you were safe hanging out with me," It wasn't. "And so she came over with you and Robert for dinner."

"I remember. Lestari made lasagna, but Chloe was there so she made her take out all the meat. My dad dragged me away to say he didn't understand vegetarians." _Lestari_; his mother. Magnus chuckled without enthusiasm.

"After you guys left that night my mom told me that she had some sort of gala that she'd been invited to. She wanted me to choose between the two dresses she picked out. She had them both laid out on her bed. I picked the pink one. It clashed perfectly her red hair." Magnus closed his eyes, falling into the past. "But the next night I heard her and my dad yelling upstairs. In the morning I found the dress in the garbage. It was burnt at the ends." He paused. "I wish I remembered what they were fighting about."

After a moment, Alec asked, "Why was the dress so special to you?"

"I saw the tag. The designer at _Cherrytree_ made it."

"Oh_. Oh_, Magnus." Alec felt the urge to reach behind him and take his hand, for comfort. There were still so many things they didn't know about each other.

"I just thought that if I could design at _Cherrytree_ then it might give me a false sense of home. A lot of my mom's stuff was designer. I don't know—it was stupid."

"It's not. Nothing you think is stupid, Magnus." Alec crawled up on his hands, turning so he could face his friend without straining. He went into comfort mode, which pretty much knocked down all sense of restraint. Magnus' eyes opened wide when Alec's hands made contact with his cheeks, cupping his face. The surprise was evident. The position was awkward; Alec on his knees, pressed into the floor, Magnus' legs crossed in the air, upside down on the springy bed. Blue and green clashed.

"You aren't. We have the most _fucked_ _up_ lives _ever_, and like you said, there are a lot of things we don't talk about, things that we _should_ talk about. But I think about it all the time, ways I could help you, how I could help I _me_. And I'm sorry I can't—help you."

They both fell silent to the sound of the rain patting on the window. The music seemed to have come to the last track, as it was no longer playing. Lightning lit up the room; it seemed to electrify his heartbeat. Without thinking, Alec ran the pad of his thumbs across Magnus' parted lips. The tip of his tongue rested on his teeth, and Alec could only get lost in the bewitching curve of his mouth.

Thunder boomed and then cracked like a whip, and a flicker of the lights sent Alec flailing backwards, kicked from the enticing atmosphere. He landed on his back, gasping for air. Alec wasn't scared of storms, but the abruptness of the charged air was a wake up, jerking him back to life.

When he sat up on his elbows, he saw that Magnus had maneuvered himself back up, sitting with his palms pressed into the bed, eyes even wider than before and a pinkish flush spread over his face. His recovery was a quick one though.

Magnus took one look at his body sprawled on the floor before smiling slightly and patting the edge of the bed in invitation—but he wasn't smiling anymore, wasn't smirking. He was serious; he wanted to talk. It was time, now or never as the mundane saying suggested.

Alec picked himself off from the floor, nervously pressing his knee into the mattress and climbing up.

"Alec," said Magnus, sitting up properly. Alec drew his legs up underneath him.

"I need to tell you something," he began. "And I need to know that you won't freak out, run away, get angry, or..." _Laugh at me_.

Somehow, he knew what was coming; he knew and he wasn't prepared for this yet—his heart wasn't ready, not for the confession, not for—he couldn't breathe, couldn't—

"I've been in love with you for four years now. I've fallen for everything about you; your eyes, your smile, every bone, muscle. How you're so strong about everything, even when you can't show it. How you seem to be the only person who revolves around other people; your selflessness, your calamity. _Everything_ Alec, everything. There isn't a single part about you that isn't perfect to me,"

"I'm far from perfect," Alec managed, swallowing hard, but Magnus continued as if he hadn't even spoken.

"But I've been watching you too," Magnus' tone was almost accusing, a change. Alec couldn't blink, couldn't tear away from the golden green swirls. "The way you act and see, the way you put up a fake face so people will leave you alone; the way you fake happy so that _I_ won't bother you. You pretend, you lie, so that you won't have to face reality—me. Well I have news for you Alexander—reality hurts you because you're fragile. It hurts me because I'm fragile. And I'm tired of being breakable. I want you to fix me." Magnus leaned closer, his hands briefly hesitating before reaching up to grip his chin. The poor boy looked like he was going to be sick.

"And I need to know," Magnus continued. "If there is any chance that you might feel the same. If not, I'll leave you alone, I'll back down. But right now all the cards are laid out, and I _need to know_."

Alec's breath was coming in shallow pants, finally being close to kind of person he'd wanted to be close to for so long. "You're wrong—"Alec's voice betrayed him though. The words came out deep and throaty, as if he was trying not to choke.

Magnus' grip on his chin was growing harsh and he was sure that there were moon-shaped indents in his skin where Magnus' fingernails were piercing him. "Then tell me," said Magnus.

"Tell me that you've never dreamt about me. Tell me that you've never woke up wishing that I was with you, or that you've wanted to leave in the morning. Tell me that _right now_, your heart isn't going crazy," His voice twisted at the end, and ended up coming out seductive and breathy. Alec felt his cheeks heating up.

But the problem was that everything he'd just said was true. Alec didn't want to leave on Saturday mornings with Jace; he sometimes woke in the middle of the night not from nightmares but from overheating, and in the morning would feel guilty; he sure as the damned had wanted to curled up next to Magnus on those rare nights that his brother or Simon couldn't make it Friday nights. Now, he was vulnerable. Magnus had broken down his wall—his closet door.

He couldn't hide anymore, no matter how much he wanted to. Magnus was leaning forward on one hand, and the other seemed to be grasping the bone beneath his mouth to the point that his fingers were swimming in blood. Alec wouldn't have been able to move even if he wanted to. An overwhelming desire to clear the space between them took over; he wanted to kiss him. He wanted to know how it feels.

"Alexander," He whispered. They were so close now that Alec could feel his breath on his lips. Magnus' hand relaxed before dropping to Alec's chest, glancing down. Sure enough, Alec's heart was racing underneath the black sweater.

Alec felt like exploding. His thoughts broke down and memories crashed into him, the ones of the two of them when they were younger; the ones when Alec started realizing his physical attraction towards men. He felt like choking, combusting— he was falling from the top of a building, lightweight and loose, like a feather. _God, this is my best friend_, was the only coherent thing he could think.

Then, against his will and with everything he had, he closed the gap between them.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The studio was white—and cold. Jace watched the crowds of sophisticatedly dressed men and women socialize, leaning back on a shadowed wall. Simon had left him not long ago to go find the refreshments, leaving him to sulk alone. The gallery was full of elite members and artist, sipping wine glasses with the occasional laugh. It wasn't his scene.

Colorful canvases were hanging on the separated walls and bright lamps dangled from the high ceiling, making the whiteness of the room and floors blind him.

The only reason he had come was so that he could see Clary without having suspicion drawn up about his interaction with a sophomore. Unfortunately, the redhead was nowhere to be found, nor her mother. Night had fallen (or was that the clouds?), and the two hours he'd spent here were completely unproductive.

He turned his head slightly to the side, so he could get his eyes off the repetitive scene. The window was large, stretching from where he was to the other side of the gallery. Being on the second floor, he could look down and watch the umbrella tops wander into the studio on Lafayette—although seeing through the rain was rather difficult.

"Hey!" Jace—he would never admit this out loud—knew that the voice was hers. It replicated the voice in his dream and made the surface of his skin tingle. Jace pushed off the wall, straightening his jacket in a rushed manner.

"Hey—Clary," He greeted her, running a hand back through his hair. Clary approached him; she wore a green knee-length dress that had some sort of woven belt hanging off her thin hips. Her hair was down, spreading like fire over her exposed shoulders.

She was pretty, he noticed. Her eyes were like almonds, and the soft cheekbones and pointed chin gave off an elegant smoothness that contradicted itself with her wildly framed hair. He could imagine them next to each other—her red next to his gold, her pale and freckles next to his tan, her short next to his tall. It was bad, to think that, but it was something that came to him without discretion.

"I didn't think I'd see you here. I wouldn't guess this is you're type of thing," She commented.

"It's not, really," He cleared his throat. "I'm here with Simon."

"I saw. He was just downstairs—he let me know you were up here. I couldn't really say I believed him," They both stood looking at each other, no words being exchanged. It was a bit overrated for Jace, to not communicate, but, in the cheesiest way of putting things, he could read her eyes, through the jade irises.

"So, uh…horrible weather, huh?" Jace cursed himself for the lame attempt at small talk.

"I don't know," said Clary. "I kind of like storms. They can be peaceful," There was a sudden crash of thunder, and the lights flickered for a mere second. The techno-like jazz silenced. Voices in the hall rose in worried nature. Clary laughed awkwardly. "And by peaceful, I mean…treacherous," She trailed off.

Jace grinned. "I haven't seen much. Want to show me around?"

"I can show you my mom's display. It's downstairs, on the dais," With a nod of recognition she grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward. He could've sworn there was a spark.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

This is what kissing feels like. Soundless, motionless, exhilarating and blood pumping. Except…he didn't know how—to kiss. He wasn't sure how to move his lips or breathe in sync or what to do with his hands.

Magnus' lips were soft against his—not at all what he would have expected from someone with so much sexual experience. He'd known Magnus for a long time, and in the past _had_ walked in on his best friend with another man. From what he's witnessed in those moments he knew that Magnus wasn't a patient partner. Magnus was demanding and harsh, unyielding always. But now, actually being the person of interest, he saw that Magnus had a soft side, hesitant and unsure—like he didn't want to scare Alec away. Alec was far from scared.

He wanted to dive into the experience, head first. He wanted to rip off the band-aid. He felt totally out of character, and for some reason that didn't faze him. He felt like a teenager for once. He wanted to get caught, to see the other side of the picture that he'd hidden from for so long.

Magnus however, was halfway frozen with the fact that Alec had initiated his first kiss, and more so that…well, _they were kissing_. Magnus was kissing Alec. And Alec was kissing him. It seemed surreal, that something he had longed over for so long was happening. It felt right, in every sense of the word.

Magnus' eyes fluttered closed, drifting into a forgotten haze—the kind he'd gotten kissing Will for the first time. Except this was nothing like it was with Will. Alec was inexperienced, unpracticed, and while he could tell that Alec wanted to put all of his control into lips, it was still messy, closed, and much to Magnus' dislike, not going anywhere. He should have been more accepting of what was going on, that Alec had finally revealed this part of him to Magnus, but…he was suddenly very impatient. He wanted Alec, and he wanted him now.

Magnus ripped away from Alec's lips, and Alec's eyes jerked open in absolute astonishment. His pupils were completely dilated, to the point that only a ring of almost black blue remained. The look on his best friend's face was one of horror, but Magnus didn't acknowledge that. With four years of pent up stress and frustration, he climbed to his knees so that he towered over Alec, and with a shove of his hand on his chest, Alec was pushed down onto his back, black hair meeting the bottom of his ragged pillows. Magnus swung his legs over Alec's hips and leaned down over him. He grinned, eyes lit with mischief, before capturing his lips—and his heart—between his own.

He was afraid that Alec might refuse the kiss, from the terrified and unknowing expression he saw on the boy's face, but after a second, Alec groaned and his eyes closed again. Alec's arms weaved themselves involuntarily up around his neck, threading through his hair, pulling Magnus down harder to stretch the pressure.

Everything Alec felt was heightened; every sense, sound, feeling, _touch_. He mind couldn't even begin to comprehend what was happening. Magnus then expertly parted his lips with his, and he felt his tongue drifting from one side of his lips to the other as they met, melted, and fused together. It was all new for Alec, and he never thought his first real kiss would be with someone like Magnus, much less Magnus himself. He didn't know what he was doing, he was confused and trying to keep up, but he kept getting lost—especially when Magnus' tongue probed _through_ his mouth, sucking gently on his top lip.

When it became evident to Magnus that Alec was not going to be able to cooperate in the way he wanted, he trailed his lips from the corner of his mouth to his cheek, before twisting Alec's neck back and leaving a concoction of fiery open-mouthed kisses on the exposed skin. He slowed when he heard Alec gasp softly, sucking delicately on the spot behind his ear that seemed to ignite more from the blue eyed boy than anything else. Although he couldn't see his face, Magnus was certain that Alec's lips were parted in the most devouring way, eyes shut, lightly or squinted; he couldn't care enough to drag a mental reference.

Alec's hands found their way to Magnus's hips, gripping the bone only separated from him by the thin fabric. He dug his fingertips in, relishing in the undeniable pleasure shooting up and down his spine. It was so…different—unexplored territory, unexplained, something he'd never felt before—something he never _expected_ to feel, _ever_. Alec wasn't _that_ guy. He didn't go looking for lust, for magic. It happened in dreams, and that was about it.

Except now…all he could see was glitter littered oceans behind his fluttering eyelids. Magnus, Magnus…

_Magnus._

His eyes shot opened, his brain going into panic. In a blurry haze, his hands removed themselves from the compromising area. He shot up, in the process shoving Magnus out of his lap and onto the opposite end of the bed (the _bed_—Jesus, what was wrong with him?). He straightened his sweater and wiped at the spot on his neck (surely beginning to bruise) before throwing his legs over the side, gripping the edge of the flimsy mattress harshly. His breathing began to slow, and he was finally getting his thoughts back into his own head.

They were both drunk, lost in an unwary drunken blur that caused him to hallucinate. This was not happening. He wasn't making out with a man who he wasn't falling for. They were both invisible, and nothing was happening.

But it was. Alec was slowly drifting back into reality, and he could feel Magnus' eyes hard on the back of his head. If he turned back, he knew he would find pain etched into Magnus' eyes, a dying dream and an awakening nightmare of a cold-blood flood of sunset saltwater.

"Alec…" Magnus said softly. "I…"

"I need to go," Alec decided, standing and hurriedly reaching for his bag at the foot of the light gray bed frame. He needed time to think, to control himself; to figure out what the hell just happened.

Magnus scrambled to the edge of the bed on his hands and knees, trying to reach out for his wrist. "Wait—please don't—" But the bedroom door slammed shut before he could make it.

A few moments later he heard the front door close. The power cut off with a flash of lightning, leaving him an outline in the darkness.

* * *

_A/N:_ ***chews nails* So, uh...review? This chapter was very awkward for me to write. I kept changing my mind about things, so that's why it probably seems kind of spacy.  
**

**I suck at writing heterosexual couples, don't you think? Especially Clace. No matter now hard I try, I will never be able to write Jace. He is just... *pulls hair*  
**

xxShar [_is thinking: Why does 'suck' and 'heterosexual' sound weird in the same sentence?_]


	7. Concrete In My Veins

**CHAPTER SEVEN:_ Concrete In My Veins  
_**

Alec brought a hand to his lips, tracing them with soft innocence—the same innocence, he supposed, that Magnus saw in him. Magnus tended to treat him like sugar candy. Sweet, vulnerable, but breakable. And when he cracked, Magnus would always find a way to ease himself into them, and meld the pieces back together. But he never left the holes completely flawless. There was always a scar, a little piece of Alec that had been once undiscovered. Every crack brought out a different side to him, and to get his thoughts and to see how much he _felt_, Magnus would have to shove him inside a nutcracker before taping him up again.

Alec's eyes shut on their own as he inhaled the musty after-rain asphalt smell, fingers tightening their grip on the window sill. He leaned out of the window, into the New York night sky. The storm had cleared up on the walk home, but he had yet to strip and shower so he was soaked and shivering in the air conditioned bedroom.

He wondered what Magnus was doing—if he was right, his friend would be pacing his living room, venting to Chloe if she'd come back yet, eyes shimmering but refusing to let anything come out of them. Chloe, whom he'd come to know very well, would wrap her arms around him and tell him to cry, that everything was okay.

But was it? No. No, it wasn't okay. Alec had kissed his best friend—his bisexual, overly emotional, completely confident and glittery best friend. And he hadn't moved to stop it. He should have. He should have backed away and they should have talked and worked things out—just like Alec was saying before it happened. But no. He freaked out and ran away, like a coward and recreant.

What was wrong with him?

Magnus had told him that he _loved_ him. _Loved. _Love is not a word just tossed out for the sake of having something to say. Love is…scary and real. And if Magnus really did mean what he said, then Alec had used him, had taken that unconscious step to use Magnus' feelings as an excuse.

Guilty as charged—he was settled between the lines of fear and blame.

Alec backed away from the window, from the wall entirely, and felt his way in the dark to his bed, where he sat down on the edge and buried his head in his hands. What was wrong with him?

He needed to sleep. It was late, and he could deal with this in the morning, when the sun was up and he was sane again. He didn't have the energy to change into fresh pajamas, so instead he pulled off his sweater and shirt, and stepped out of his jeans before lying back down and pulling the comforter over his head, hoping to suffocate his nightmares, like oxygen to a flame.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

_In the dream, there was a table, long and metal. It sat in the middle of a small room, very dark, all lights reflecting off the medical bed. Alec ran his fingers over the surface, shivering at the touch. He scoped the room, or tried, unable to see in the darkness. Above him hung white lights that extended only so far._

_There was techno music vibrating the tiled ground, cutting the silence. When he listened closer, he heard that it wasn't from a booming sound system, like he believed, but a piano—or a keyboard, electric, ringing pulses of a loud-soft rhythm into his skull. A voice began to sing along with the music, turning the club beat into a sort of ballad. The voice belonged to a woman, soft and frail, high and flowing. It whistled through his being like a mantra, repeating the same verse over and over. _

_"It's an outsider's escape for a broken heart."_

_It was the lullaby his mother would sing to him and Isabelle when they were children, afraid of the dark. Except now, alone and enclosed by a single light and surrounded by a dark that to his knowledge could contain demon after demon, he bathed in it. He relished in the darkness, as it was all he had come to know._

_Without warning, the dream shifted, and he was bound to the table, his naked back pressed against the cold metal, wrists tied together underneath. His forearms dug into the corners, creating harsh bruises in his scarred skin._

_He struggled slightly, but couldn't be bothered with his bindings. He was tethering on the edge between sleep and wake now, somehow the pain in his arms allowing him to see beyond his closed eyelids. He could see shadows on the walls of his bedroom, forming the faces of monsters and devils, the cries of dying children and worlds. But he drifted back, on the table, lying quietly as the lullaby droned on._

_A figure emerged from the darkness._

_"Alexander," it said. No. It didn't speak. The word—his name—drifted across the top of his mind as if he had thought it himself. Alec tilted his head curiously to get a better look. The figure was draped in robes, head to toe, a hood casting shadows over its face. However, Alec could see its mouth. He was terrified when he saw that there was barely a mouth at all, but closed lips stitched over with X like crossing threads, enabling his speech._

_Alec wanted to shy back, looking down at his unclothed body. He looked away from the—the person, and up at the ceiling with closed eyes. When he opened them, he gasped in alarm when he saw himself looking back, blue eyes burning bright. It was a mirror placed directly over his face._

_The hooded figure was pulling down the hood when he turned back. His eyes widen. There were no eyes at all, black holes etched where they should've been. It was like looking into the universe, except with no stars. Until the figure began to change, to contort into a person; black hair grew from the scalp, the flesh shaded itself a tone more brown, eyes stitching themselves into bone, and then green awakening from the fissure._

_"Magnus—" Alec whispered, his breath catching in the back of his throat._

_Magnus, the boney fingers now long and ringed with gems, held one up to his own lips. The robes still encased him._

_"Don't talk," His voice was soft but sharp, and Alec could feel the command pricking his skin like knifes._

_Magnus approached him, stepping completely into the light. Alec now remembered that he was naked and began to tremble in humiliation and anticipation. Magnus reached out, grabbing the hand he'd meant to take before Alec had run from his room in Brooklyn. They weren't in Brooklyn anymore. They were far from Brooklyn. Alec's lips parted and his breaths became shallower, panting softly under the hard gaze of his friend (if that was what he was?)._

_When their hands met, Alec's stare faltered. In the corner of his eyes he saw more light. Where Magnus' fingers were trailing up his arm, they left a line of glowing shine, streaming from out of his skin. The light was shining through his scars—through the undesirable nonexistent fearless runes. _

_Magnus' hands kept going up, stopping at his shoulder before dipping south, down his chest at a slow pace. He shivered—whether it was in pleasure or fear he didn't know. Magnus walked with his hands, footsteps barely noticeable. He stopped at his hip, fingers circling the bone there. Their eyes no longer connected as Magnus stared down at his own fingers, watching them with narrow eyes, glittering with entertainment, like he enjoyed watching his love squirm._

_Suddenly, red flashed behind his eyelids, and a sweet oily scent had filled the air. His back arched and blood pulsed behind his ears. _

_He forced his eyes open and was horrified at what he saw. There was no Magnus. There was simply a figure in a hood, soulless eyes like an opened window._

_. . . . . . . . . . . ._

Alec shot up in bed, breaths erratic and uncatchable—soundless but deafening alike. It was still night, and the window was opened letting cool wafts of air into the room. He threw the webbed blankets off of his legs and got to the window, shutting it and turning the lock with a click. He pressed his forehead to the frozen glass and shut his eyes, exhaling one last time before torturing his lungs lacking the oxygen needed.

_Shit,_ he thought. He'd forgotten to take a pill before he fell asleep. He would have to wait until morning to keep his schedule. When he looked back at his room, his eyes had finally adjusted enough to see a bit more in the dark. He didn't bother trying to find the light switch, as the electricity was probably still out, and besides, light wouldn't chase away the black spots dancing in his vision. He could still feel eyes watching him, the paranoia of the shadows still glaring at him on the walls. He heard their taunting whispers, their judging laughter.

And the dream. What the _fuck_ was that? Sure, most of his dreams were strange, but that was just…a drunken mess. What could he do now? He wasn't going back to sleep now; normally he couldn't.

Alec bent over and grabbed his jeans off the floor, pulling them on and leaving his room. He was a bit nervous, as he wasn't sure what time it was and his arms were uncovered, but by the moon still being high he didn't think anyone would be up.

In the narrow hall there were dim lamps lighting his way downstairs and through the rest of the house. He caught the time on the kitchen clock—four thirty. He had time.

He was unlocking the door to the black room in a matter of minutes, closing and re-locking it a moment later.

Alec flipped on the standing lamp; everything was as he left it. Colored bean bags scattered, paint cans of a variety of colors towering in the corner, filing boxes overflowing with notebook paper. This room, you see, was his masterpiece. To some it would be just a lonely child's social getaway, and in a way it was, but if you looked closer, at the right angle and in the wrong places, it was his story, his life. There was Magnus, above him in the form of starry lips, and Jace a splatter of gold's and yellows on the concrete floor, and Simon was a pair of glasses, only the size of his hand, on the light bulbs dangling down, casting different shadows over the room. His parents were the black walls, and a purple dot, only visible when the lights were off, over the black was his disease, which he'd taken great care in not letting the paint touch anything else, so that he wouldn't infect anybody important—he knew that one day he would reel somebody in too deep, and they would get lost with him.

It was a win lose situation for them all.

He sunk into a yellow bag, pulling one of the file boxes close. He snapped it open. Half of it contained sketches, drawings—some of random things, some of eyes, faces, some of nature or animals. He even had one of Church. However, in the other half was what actually mattered to him. The writings, the journal entries, the thoughts and words written on paper, the feelings that defined who he was and how he was shaped as a human; his journey discovering his sexuality, accepting it, getting over his incestuous crush on Jace—it went back earlier, to before the black room, learning about his parents adopting his brother, about his mother being pregnant with Max, meeting Magnus and Simon, and even earlier, to when he had started having the hallucinations (granted, his writing wasn't very good back then, and very vague, but he only been six, just barely learning how to write properly).

Now it was his life. Writing was an escape, as drawing was an entrance to other dimensions.

His parents weren't aware of this. They didn't approve of creative people. They think that artists and writers and actors and musicians are unpractical and attention seekers. He wasn't an attention seeker—he just wanted to be noticed, just for once, over his oh so perfect siblings. His parents were also very narrow minded. They weren't religious in any way, they just didn't approve of his social anxiety, or the fact that he was _different_. There was that word again. If only they knew how different he really was. If they knew he spent his spare time writing novels and kissing his best friend—his very _male_ best friend—they would probably die, or disown him at the least.

They weren't bad people though, and Alec knew this. They were accepted and known by everybody who was somebody. They were just...normal.

Marsye and Robert were agents. Not company agents, not hiring agents—_real_ agents. They worked for a higher level servitude in the FBI. It was secret. He and Isabelle had no idea what they did, they didn't know what kind of work they did, if they dealt with criminals or weapons or worse—he didn't particularly want to know, especially if his parents were killing people. He wouldn't be able to look at them the same again. They were never home, and the few times they were it was because they were packing for another trip. It was rare that he saw them even a full month out of the year. Christmas and Easter were the only excuses, and then the get-togethers were awkward and stiff—presents were infrequently exchanged and dinner was silent.

Alec sighed and shut the notebook, sticking it back into the file. He leaned back, unsure what to do. He'd been trying to keep them gone, but the previous day's events came rushing back to him as result of thinking of the dream.

In brutal honesty, Alec hadn't actually considered coming out an option for him. Those types of public confessions were life changers, for the good and the bad. Alec wasn't concerned with having a relationship period—why put himself through all that misery and embarrassment if he didn't have to? Being attracted to other men didn't define who he was, it didn't put him on a golden (or scalding black, if you like) pedestal. He wasn't ashamed…just logical.

It was a legit solution. No love life, no family or social issues. He was already socially awkward enough as it was. He didn't need this backing him into another hole.

Unfortunately, he'd done that by himself, no social anxiety needed.

Magnus was…a tricky subject—always. No matter the time or place, he always stirring people around, trapping and tipping their emotions, flipping them, so that he was right. But now, with tongues and fingernails involved, was there any right answer?

_It's like a fucking rape campaign_, he thought. The man is always guilty. Until it's discovered that the woman was wearing short shorts. Then it's her fault. But it's not. Is it?

When it came down the end though, he should not have kissed Magnus. It was out of the question and completely inappropriate. He should have stopped Magnus, told him that he wasn't interested. He wasn't sure that he _was _interested. It was idea of kissing someone that he was close to, being with someone with all the right physicality. He liked men. He didn't like Magnus.

But Magnus…_loved him_? He groaned.

_"You pretend, you lie, so that you won't have to face reality—me." _

_Was_ he lying? No—he hadn't remembered ever flat coming out and saying he was straight. Did anybody? Was being straight just expected? No, he hadn't shoved himself into a hole.

Magnus had—by telling him that he loved him. He felt a sudden surge of anger flood through him. It was Magnus' fault. He wouldn't be feeling the things he did, the confusion and pleasure, if not for Magnus. Somewhere in his distant mind he knew he shouldn't be thinking these things, that it was just as wrong, that it was his un-medicated mind speaking to him, but he couldn't help it. For just a split second, he felt true hate towards his friend for putting him in this position—to lose their friendship or form a relationship. He regretted it a moment later.

It was true though—that now he was stuck with no alternative. One didn't tell someone they loved them and then take it back. He'd watched enough romance movies to know that, read enough of Izzy's books. Confrontation was the only way to deal with an issue like this—talking, face to face, eyes to eyes. Lips to lips? He hoped not.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

When Isabelle awoke early Saturday morning, she was bombarded by her little brother, practically forcing her from her bed with a pile of clothes shoved into her hands. She was then told that Hodge wanted her to take Max out, to get some air before her parents returned the next weekend to discuss colleges with her older brothers. And now, Isabelle was in Brooklyn. She hated Brooklyn. Call her snobby or conceited, it was probably true, but Brooklyn was just…Brooklyn. Narrow streets, lots of cars, a hot dog stand on every corner. Manhattan was so much more put together and sophisticated—elite parties, posh galleries, elegant banquets and plenty of ball gowns. She was sure Brooklyn had its fair share of fun, but they partied differently than rich girls like her did.

She hated it sometimes, that she hated Brooklyn. It was what she was raised in—to always to be properly dressed for the occasion and smile and nod in all the right places. She wanted to have fun, to be like other girls, but fun meant danger, and with her parent's profession she never knew the messes she could get into without caution.

"Can I get this one too?" Max's head peaked around the shelf, holding out another comic book in his hand. His glasses were tilted on his head. Isabelle let out a little laugh, smiling sadly.

"Sorry Max. You only have enough money for two. Hurry up and pick—Hodge wants us back soon," Her tone was different with her little brother, it always was. There was no impulsive way to act around him, as he was always surprising her.

Max Lightwood was different from other boys his age. He was smarter, more aware and in tune with people and the way they perceived things. She wasn't sure when to talk to him like a child or when to speak to him like an adult, or at least a teenager, because she wasn't sure were his boundaries were, where his knowledge halted. He'd already asked her about sex before (he had wanted to know what a 'g-spot' was, claiming he'd read about one in a school text book), but hadn't known what she meant when she asked him about his non-perpetual vision. But he learned new things every day, faster than she did.

"I'm not stupid you know," he said. "I know you and Alec get money from mom and dad. Why don't I?" Her smile faltered, face softening.

"Max…" said Isabelle, trailing off. "It's complicated. Mom and dad…"

He shook his head. Dark strands of hair fell into his face. "Yeah, yeah, I'm too young to understand. Whatever, I only wanted these two anyways," He said before disappearing behind the aisle and reappearing with a comic book and what seemed to be one of those Japanese styled ones—what was it called? Anime? That was it.

Isabelle turned around in the shop, going to check out Max's picks, when she backed into something, or someone, sending whatever it was toppling to the ground with a soft thud. There was now a cardboard box lying sideways on the carpet at her feet, comics spilling out of it. She glanced up, eyes round.

"Simon?" She gaped. The taller boy was standing there, face staring down the box blankly. His hair was pushed out of his face, glasses making his wide browns look wider. He was dressed in a black t-shirt with the shop's logo on the front and tattered jeans. Isabelle seemed startled at how much he resembled Max, if he was older and had lighter hair.

She realized that she probably was very over dressed for Brooklyn; skinny jeans and leather vests probably weren't top notch fashion here.

"What are you doing here?"

"Isabelle?" He asked, looking up at her surprised. "I—I work here."

"Oh," She said stupidly. "That makes sense, considering…"

He chuckled before bringing an awkward hand to his face. "We keeping meeting like this, huh?" He said, gesturing to the overflowing comic box on the floor, bending down to pick them back up. She helped, recalling their first meeting outside of Taki's.

"I don't picture you as a Brooklyn kind of girl," he said, trying to make conversation. "What are you doing down here?"

"I'm here with my brother, actually." she explained.

"Max?"

"M'hmm," she nodded, looking over her shoulder to find him. She was amused to find him still scanning titles even after deciding. "He managed to convince me that this is the only place in a hundred mile radius that has the, the comic book he's looking for."

"Nah," Simon said, crinkling his nose. "I think he's here for the discounts. We're cheap, unlike that bastard borough you live in,"

They finished packing in the last comics and Simon helped her to her feet while balancing the box in his other hand to avoid another incident. They stared at each other for a short while before she cleared her throat. Max was tugging at her arm, apparently ready to leave now. Simon noticed too, looking down at the nine year old.

"Hey Max," he greeted. She'd forgotten that they knew each other better than she did. "Well, maybe we could hang out sometime? With Alec or something," It took her a second to see that he was talking to her.

"Oh! Yeah, sure, that sounds great,"

He smiled before walking past her and continuing whatever task he had needed to complete. She watched, partly with curiosity and partly because he intrigued her. Why would she be interested in a guy like that? A guy, coincidentally, who had been in her house probably more times than she had and yet she'd never gone out her way to make conversation with him.

"Izzy? Izzy..." Max pulled at her sleeve. "Don't you have a boyfriend?" He said, more of a statement than a question.

"Wha—Max!" She exclaimed.

"Can I check out now?"

She sighed with difficultly, straining. "Yes. Go," She pushed her brother in front of her and walked after him to the cashier.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The phone was still. Magnus had finally given up after an hour of calling, telling himself that Alec's cell was either dead or out of reach—it didn't ease his worry. Alec had left the apartment in the middle of one of the worst storms New York had seen in a while, and after supposedly hearing a gunshot? It didn't help to wash away his concern.

Now, hours and hours later, the sun was peeking from the grey clouds, dawn spreading over the horizon. He held the phone against his chest, watching out the window from his bed with bloodshot eyes and smeared eyeliner; it was dry on his face, cracking and leaving red blotches over his cheeks.

Another pound filled his ears. Chloe had been banging on his door for the past hour, trying to get him to come out of his room, eat something, and tell her what was going on. She claimed she had something important to tell him about, but he wasn't coming out—forever if he could. The knocks were coming fewer and farther in between, and he assumed she was backing off, giving him space. It was only seven thirty anyways. He normally wouldn't be up at this hour.

He let his eyes shut, wishing the images away, wanting them to stop from flashing in front of him; Alec below him, completely at his submission, clawing at his hipbones and moaning. It was quite possibly the sexiest most eye catching thing he'd ever seen. And he blew it. He pushed his limits too far, satisfying (not really) his own needs and not waiting for Alec to catch up, to find and set his boundaries. And making out was never the purpose of that night. In fact, he hadn't intended to tell Alec about his feelings at all. It was Alec's fault, he tried to pin the blame, for being so damn seductive in the moment before the lightening; for running his fingers over his lips and biting his own and looking at him with curious and wandering baby blues.

But after his tiny speech, all he'd wanted was a kiss. Just something to calm his erratic heartbeat and to reassure Alec that nothing was final or permanent, that words could always be twisted and regretted so that they didn't have to worry about him not reciprocating his feelings.

And then _that_ happened. His wants took over his needs, and things escalated quicker than anticipated.

"_Fuck_," he groaned out into the pillow, rolling it up and over his head as if he could block out all his problems. It wasn't Alec's fault at all. He was innocent in every way as he always was; this was Magnus' issue, his wrong doing. Then he heard Chloe shout from the kitchen, something about watching his language. How she could hear him all the way across the apartment was a dead end. He really didn't care.

_Screw this_, he thought. He needed to get out of bed. Letting out another groan, he tossed the pillow across the room and rolled over so he could sit up. His muscles protested from being crouched up for so long, and his clothes were wrinkled and in dire need of being wash washed. _He_ was in dire need of a shower.

But before anything else could proceed, he needed to try one more time. Then he would back off until Monday when they would be forced to see each other whether Alec liked it or not.

Magnus played with the Blackberry in his hands, twirling it around with his fingers before holding down '_1_' and putting the speaker to his ear.

He wasn't that surprised when nobody answered.

* * *

_A/N: _**Jesus, I actually like this chapter. I'm a horrible person though. Two weeks without an update? I have no excuses.  
**

**Please Read—that small mention to rape up there? I was in Alec's disturbed, un-medicated mind for a moment and that's what popped up. In no way is it meant to be offensive :)  
**

xxShar [_is thinking: School starts in two weeks. I'm just going to sit here and be depressed about it_]


	8. The Bane Of My Existence

**[filler]  
CHAPTER EIGHT:_ The Bane Of My Existence_**

It's to be assumed that flavor is an aesthetic in Magnus' organs. Like color, the swirls of raspberry or drops of spiked orange oil that melted into too sweet coffee would be a magnificent taste and pleasing to the eyes—his eyes. It's to be assumed that Magnus didn't like plain things, boring things, things that could smear out his glitter with clouds—and that would be why Magnus likes flavors; to remind him that a single scent could satisfy more than just one of the senses. Flavor is a vanity and after all—vanity is the fuel of the heart.

Your assumptions would be wrong.

This is where his and his love's personalities switched so abruptly.

Magnus drinks his coffee black.

Alexander on the other hand didn't mind the occasional squirt of whipped cream or the slight drizzle of caramel to ease the bitterness; he didn't care if a barista dusted a bit of pumpkin spice onto the milky beverage. Caffeine was music and music wakened his scenes to remind him that he wasn't dead.

Magnus was a lot more dead on the inside then people believed.

Magnus knew his own coffee order; he knew Jace's, and Simon's, and even Chloe's, but he didn't know Alexander's. He was always changing it. Sometimes it was berries, sometimes a mix of strange sounding fruits; he ordered the holiday specials always, and he let the person making the drink decide if he wanted cream or sugar or an ethical sprinkle.

Magnus had never noticed before, always shrugged it aside without a second though. He didn't pay attention to the way Alec would stare into the cup before taking a sip, testing the waters, seeing what the flavor would be that day; he didn't notice how Alec would watch whatever condescending palette twists were in his cup and the way that he would try to guess what the tang would be before drinking it. He ignored how the teenager would be surprised even after tasting the budding sensation twice, as if the flavor had changed.

Who knew? Maybe it had. Maybe Alec was a lot more crazy than he had thought.

It's to be assumed that Alexander drinks his coffee black—Alec had seen a lot of black things in his life, unlively black things—black heart, black coffee.

But it was Magnus with the tainted black heart. Sparkling things on the outside and darkening things on the inside. Witnessing murder and being the victim of a demolished heart can change you.

Magnus drinks his coffee black. Because when he does he can finally be comfortable with knowing that there is a void inside of him that only one thing can fill; plainness, black things, like Alec. But sitting there on the edge of his bed with a Styrofoam cup of the blackest most dark drink he could find and watching the sun rise he could understand for the first time why some people wanted sugar.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Alec sipped the caffeinated coffee slowly, unsuccessfully trying to not to jerk when the too-hot liquid hit his upper lip. He sputtered and reached for a napkin, getting a slight minty tang before wiping the drops away.

It was early afternoon, and although the sun was shining through the clouds and drying the wet streets, the temperature was low and he was freezing, being an idiot and wearing only a thin shirt. Traffic was light in Brooklyn that day and few people were out wandering. He sat at an iron table outside Java Jones—he was suppose to be waiting for Simon, as they had planned lunch a few days before, but Simon had cancelled with the excuse that he was with Isabelle. _Who would've thought Isabelle would be Simon's type?_

No, Isabelle was exactly Simon's type—tall, thin, beautiful; thinking about that in a brotherly way, of course. In fact, Isabelle was probably the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, besides their mother, who shared her daughter's lean and uncolored appearance. It was too bad she murdered it with stress lines and a workaholic personality. Maybe it was a family thing—maybe it was just harsh reality.

What was Alec's type? He pondered on this, blowing on the coffee to cool it down, wrapping both hands around the cup and slouching in the metal chair; it was doing awful things to his spine.

When he closed his eyes, he saw blond. He saw gold. He was thirteen again. He opened his eyes, and in front of him, across the table, he saw black. He saw the slant to the eyes, he saw green and copper and the entire rainbow sparkling in neon.

He blinked.

He saw nothing.

_God damn him_. Everywhere he went—his dreams and his memories, filled with the bane of his existence. Alec had never thought of his best friend like an enemy before now. He didn't want to. He just wanted peace of mind, to go back in time and erase that night. It was too late now.

His phone buzzed, the shaky table vibrating.

_Thirteen Missed Calls._  
_Magnus_ _Bane. _

He pressed the ignore button and tried to drink the coffee again. This time it was cool enough to swallow.

He knew he would have to face Magnus sooner or later, he knew that they would have to talk and figure out where to go from here, but he couldn't do it right then. He needed a bit more time to reanimate himself and set himself straight. After all, was it truly possible to live, sin, and forget? He doubted it. He knew that Magnus doubted it—Magnus held grudges, hard ones.

Will was a perfect case in point of that. Five years later and the two still hating each other for that one starry night under the moon, water lapping at their feet—crawling from the water, to the cabin; his friend's addiction to new things, to unexplored territory, to the excitement of nakedness in a place full of other humans...

His hand began to shake and a bit of the strawberry-banana brown slipped over the edge of the cup, dotting his hand. He didn't bother wiping it away as it soaked into the sleeves of his shirt; no doubt it would leave a stain. It showered the moment perfect, the way he felt about himself. Magnus was the flavor, the strawberry banana, and he was the brown. He felt disgusted with himself for feeling good about using Magnus _to _feel good. It was a strange feeling, a brown feeling, staining and stabbing at his chest. But he didn't—feel good that is. Even kissing his best friend felt wrong on so many levels, so many psychological levels. It was nice, the physical aspect. But the rest? The turmoil that came with it? The butterflies—_pssh_, butterflies; more like killer bees—burning in the pit of his stomach, stinging their way out?

Vile rose in his throat. He spit the coffee back into the cup, making a face, trying to rid the contradicting flavors from his tongue.

_He could feel the tip of the hot muscle tracing patterns on the edge of his own orifice. A moan brushed past it._

He stood from the chair wide awake, tossing the barely touched caffeine into the nearest trashcan, letting the wind whip across his face—like a slap, only colder.

So for now he would ignore and become his own therapist—not the best idea—and hope for a blood-clean getaway from this hellish limbo.

It was brilliant, he knew. And deeply, quietly disturbing. Like the killer bees.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

_It's September, _Magnus thought_, and I'm drinking hot chocolate. Does she know that it's eighty-four degrees outside?_

He cupped the mug between both of his hands, settled comfortably on the faux white-leather sofa, staring off into his reflection on the TV screen. He was a mess. He hadn't gotten to the bathroom before Chloe was on him, seeing the bloodshot streaks on his face and the green _Fiend_ dye rubbing off of the ends of his limp hair and onto his bare shoulders; baggy shorts wrinkled and tank top scrunched up rather gracelessly on his back.

She'd forced him down the hall and into the living room where several thick bindings of ancient history sat opened on the coffee table, a strange looking blue stone sitting in a glass of salt mocking him. The stone was the exact color of Alec's eyes.

Chloe must have been up to her extracurricular activities again—witchcraft and such. Now he could hear her rustling around in the kitchen, slamming cabinets and banging pans. She was probably making a concoction of spices to add to her own beverage, something to strengthen her mentality or whatever hedge witches did.

She emerged like a waitress through the opening in the bar, a mug balancing on the tips of her fingers and the other hand elegantly resting on her hip. The lengthy blond hair was pulled up in a bun, strands of hair bouncing around her forehead and lining the silvery glint in the sky blue irises. She wore skin tight jeans and a red top, the shoulders open enlightening creamy skin.

"What's all this for?" He asked as she moved through the chairs, setting down the chocolate drink and finding a seat opposite of him on the floor. She immediately began to shut the books.

"Just things—" She replied, pushing the salt-stone mixture and books to the side. "I'm researching for the group—about old tattoos used to empower the body—_Irazte, _that's what it's called. For healing."

Magnus tried to be interested; he quirked his eyebrows, but they deflated less than a second later, the unreadable frown returning. He was glad his aunt had something that kept her going in her screwed up life—mostly because of him, which irked him in the wrong places—but at the moment he couldn't find the will to care.

"And the salt? The stone?" He hoped he didn't appear to be as miserable as he felt.

"A form of magically enhanced gem–rocks that illuminate when held—the salt is what binds it to the magic. They called it Witchlight,"

"Oh,"

There was a pause as Chloe situated herself, bookmarking and stacking and pouring and holding the materials lying out. Then, a moment or two later, it seemed like any ordinary person's coffee table; magazines thrown carelessly about, coffee stains and rings on the glass, cat fur attaching itself to everything in existence. The Chairman was on the other side of the room, fishing something out from behind the bookshelf.

"Alright—listen," Chloe said, alighting herself into one of the cross-stitched armchairs. "You know I'm not good with this parenting stuff so you're going to have to help me out."

"Okay," Magnus said without sounding unduly curious, his lips then forming a hard line as he lifted the mug to his face.

"It's your mother's recipe by the way," She said. "Two packets, instead of one—with the marshmallows from Corona Street in Queens. Expensive stuff,"

_Hitam dan merah ubin dinding-tubuh dan tubuh, dua berjajar tetapi hanya satu dengan hati._ _A girl with a grin once tangled in webs, but a boy with a knife and an untangled thread._

"I know." he replied, sipping the hot chocolate. The melody of his mother's home-language lullaby whispered through his head; flavors do queer things with his memories, twisting them in apocalyptic manners, when really it was just him alone with a bedtime story years and years ago.

"Magnus? Are you listening to me?" Magnus glanced up, blinking the song from his mind.

"What?"

"Can we graduate from the one-word answers?" She asked with a sigh of irritation. In the corner of the room he could see the bug-eye cat clock, ticking relentlessly; sometimes he wondered about clocks. It seemed like they wanted to get somewhere, but in the end they would take a step forward to take a step back, repeating a story over and over without a conclusion.

"If you want," She tilted her head with hard lips. "What? That was three," he said in defense. She took a sip of the hot chocolate, her first, and he could now smell the strange spices in her drink. They weren't unpleasant, but rather made him a bit nauseous after a moment.

"Look." said Magnus. "It's nothing to worry about, alright? Alec's going through some stuff right now and it's taking its toll on me too." He tried to reassure, uncrossing his legs and leaning over the glass table to take her hand, except creating a bit of lie sprinkled in. It wasn't exactly a lie, right?

"I worry about you though." She said, voice hinted with concern. He couldn't tell if it was real. "I know that we aren't exactly in a good place right now, and I know that you have problems with that and I'm trying to help as much as I can but there's only so much I can do until you let me in,"

Magnus slouched into the puffy back of the sofa, letting his eyes fall back as his neck hit the rest, releasing her hands. "Do you want to know what really happened?" He looked over at her.

"I want to help you," She told him. When he met her eyes, again blue on green, he saw the same pity he saw on the day she adopted him. He remembered the light eyes, the bright cobalt swimming in misfortune for him. He knew what she had been thinking too—he could see her staring down at him, telling herself that he was only a boy, just ten years of age, and that no child deserves to star in their own horror film. Did she think the same thing was happening? That his own memories were distorting so craftlessly?

_She doesn't have a clue_, he realized. _She thinks my feelings are only a game I play. She doesn't know how real they all are_.

"You want to help me but you have no idea how to because you don't believe a word that comes out of my mouth," He snapped, although not with volume, but with demand.

"_Magnus_," Her eyebrows shot up, pity turning to putrid confusion. "What on earth—"

Magnus pulled himself together, lucid thoughts emitting clearly in his head, what he wanted to say, needed to say, to make her understand. Maybe sometimes the rainbow got so blinding or the coffee got so black that he forgot that reality still existed, that sometimes people didn't actually know what he was thinking. Considering his life was so public at Alicante he'd neglected his life at home. His eyes went to hers sharply, and he leaned to the side into the armrest, pulling his legs back underneath him. The rest dug into his ribs, the hot chocolate seemed to heat up, prickling the ends of his fingers.

"All the time you tell me that the way I feel about Alec is just hormones, and teenager falsities. But you don't really understand how real this is for me. I _am in love _with him, Chloe. I love him and I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't. It's not something I can control. It's just as natural as your voodoo magic shit. It's _not natural_. I'm not _supposed_ to feel this way, and I do. And when you tell me that these feelings aren't real it freaking_ hurts_." All the while he felt his eyes shimmer over, his voice cracking in a multitude of places. He was just rotting away in a desert of metaphors.

He didn't dare look at his aunt, who he imagined was stunned into silence.

"You wanted to know what was going on. Well, me and Alec kissed, and now he hates me, and now I hate me too. It's just as simple as that." He put in great effort to push away the stinging in his eyes because he knew if he blinked he wouldn't be able to hold back anymore tears. He thought he had cried them all out. Apparently not.

Moments passed. He glanced at her in the corner of his eye. Her head was in her hands, fingers running relentlessly through the blond hairline, pulling the strands from its holder. Her mug was on the table, steaming, creating a new sticky ring on the glass.

"I wish I knew what to say. I told you I'm not good with this parenting stuff." Said Chloe finally.

"I don't want you know what to say. I just want you to believe me."

"…I don't like this," She said, but he could feel her reprimanding thoughts. "You're barely an adult."

"If mom were here, she wouldn't care who I loved."

"If your mother were here she would beat you with a Celurit and then shove condoms in your hand." Magnus cracked a leer grin. "I don't care who you love, Magnus. I just want you to be sure of yourself before you ruin the best relationship you have,"

"I know what I want, Chloe. And besides, it's a bit too late for that, don't you think? He's already cut me off,"

"He hasn't cut you off," Although she was firm with her voice, it still wavered just the smudging inch, and he knew for certain that she wasn't convinced herself. "He just needs time."

The cat clock ticked one o'clock. It electronically meowed, the sound startling The Chairman—he scampered out from under the bookshelf, hitting his head twice and then skidding into the kitchen where a vary of thumps and banging cabinets commenced.

"Does Alec know…how you feel?"

Magnus laughed sourly, dragging a finger through the sticky marshmallows that hadn't yet dissolved into the heated liquid. He spun his hand around, trying to wind to dripping white mush onto the one finger before he licked it dry. The sweetness dissolved into his mouth, and he pulled the finger out with a pop. Magnus frowned, inspecting the nail; marshmallow was glued to the inside.

"Yeah. I idiotically gave him a speech about how flawless he fuc—"

"_Magnus_," She warned.

"—about how flawless he freaking is. And then, you know, stuff happened. He freaked out and left. Like, what if he isn't even gay?" He asked to the point, looking up expectantly at Chloe with a hand thrown out. "What if I made the whole thing up in my head? Like when he didn't take a date to homecoming, or when I found concealer in his room, or when he cried when we watched Titanic, or when he practically shrieked when that spider fell on him last Halloween, or when—oh _Jesus_, I made the whole thing up in my head, didn't I?" He started panicking, a new sea of salt water stabbing in the corners of his eyes.

"No, no, no, no, no. Magnus, honey—it's okay. You don't know, okay? You don't know. Just wait for him to talk to you. I promise it'll be alright,"

"How do you know? You don't even want me to—to feel the way I do. I just..." He cleared his throat and dug his neck into the armrest. "I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't have a chance with him,"

Another quivering sigh broke through his lips. "Alright. I'm done. I'm going to take a shower. Call if you need anything."

"Wait a second—" Chloe protested, reaching out for his arm. He dodged it.

When the bathroom door shut, The Chairman emerged from the kitchen, looking dazed. He saw the cat clock on the wall, as if noticing it for the first time, and pounced on the wall—the vibrations sent the ticking time bomb falling, glass shattering on the wooden planks.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Isabelle blinked, standing at the bottom of the stairs and entrance to the kitchen. "Who the hell are you?" She directed to the frightened looking redhead girl. Wide green eyes stared back at her, immediately backing down as if she were inferior to Isabelle—she probably was. Compared to her model figure, this girl oozed Queens. Baggy jeans, worn brown ankle boots, and a '_5 Pointz'_ t-shirt? Totally Queens.

"Well?" She crossed her arms impatiently.

"Oh, um, I'm Clary. A friend of Jace's." The girl stammered nervously, obviously thinking she'd been caught in the act of something horrible; like stealing the stainless steel knifes, or the contents of their refrigerator—not that she'd want to; the majority of it was stuff Isabelle had attempted to cook, and her food tended to make people vomit, though she wasn't sure why. She thought she was a perfectly good cook.

Really though, the girl, Clary apparently, had been sitting at the island on one of the red bar stools, spinning back and forth as she waited for Jace's return. Then she saw Isabelle and jumped up. It probably wasn't everyday you found a stranger sitting in your home.

Isabelle dawned on realization and smiled sympathetically. "Sweetheart, my brother doesn't have friends. He has conquests."

Clary looked stumped again, her cheeks flushing slightly red. "Oh, I wasn't, uh—I mean, we aren't, we're just—" Isabelle laughed.

"All of you girls are the same," She said in a chiding tone, venturing into the kitchen, selecting random cabinets until she found her object of desire—a bag of chips, unopened and waiting to be devoured. She was lucky; she was young, her metabolism was strong so she didn't have to worry about messy weight loss methods. "You take one step into the mighty presence of Jace Herondale and your heart is stolen for good. Then he fucks you and leaves you for worse. You cry, you curse him, and you move on. It always works that way. I would know; I have personal experience." She winked for good measure. Clary's eyes were wide, her fingers pulling at the lining of her jacket.

Isabelle swung her legs over a bar stool, taking a seat opposite of the redhead. Clary watched as the slim sister tore into the aluminum sack, shoving chips in her mouth three at a time. She hesitantly sat back down at the marble island, placing her hands under her thighs.

"You've...you've _slept_ with Jace?" Clary asked for clarification, not really wanting to know. She wasn't one to judge, but..._really?_ Some things were too far of a stretch for her to believe. They were _siblings_ after all.

Isabelle shrugged. "We didn't really sleep together. We were kids, we were curious. It was a few months after he'd moved in, and we just did it, you know? Kissed, I mean. At that age I didn't even know what sex was."

"How old were you?"

"Eight, I think? Nine? Anyway, it was gross, like licking a fucking ten year old," Isabelle giggled, though Clary didn't really know why. "Well, he _was_ ten. We swore to never talk about it again, which is strange considering that I just met you and you're the first person I've ever told. Alec doesn't even know,"

"He's your brother, right? The tall one?"

Isabelle nodded. "How you know him?"

"Simon told me,"

"You hang out with Simon?" Isabelle reckoned curiously.

"He's my best friend." Pointed out Clary. "Well, since summer started." She reprimanded.

Isabelle clicked her tongue against her teeth silently, setting the chips down and sliding them around the grey marble surface in case her guest wanted any. "And he's told you about Alec? What about me? Anything about me?"

"I..." Clary started, looking blankly at the chips, taking one after a second of thought. "No, sorry. Nothing about you,"

She saw that for a moment Isabelle looked sort of disappointed, but cleared out of it without it ever really being there.

Clary looked up at the sound of a throat clearing. Jace stood at the door, looking amused. His hair was wet, dripping on the thin white shirt. _Very thin_, Clary noticed, appreciating the way his abs were visible. _Good god, are you really going to forget what his sister just told you?_ He was a womanizer, Clary knew. She'd heard the stories even before the first day of school, but _my god, he's like a Greek god_. Perfect to draw. She would have to try sometime.

"Ready to go?"

"Where are you guys going?" Isabelle asked, seeing the utter daze on Clary's face. Well, the girl could look, she supposed. Just no touching. This girl also oozed innocence, and she wasn't going to let her brother steal another soul for his collection.

"Frankie's, down on 42nd Street. It's a—"

"Victorian lunch bar. I know. I'll drive."

"Wha—but you—"

"You don't mind me tagging along, do you? Me and Clary here have grown to be such close friends." She said with a slight tease, grinning falsely as a sign of warning to her brother.

Clary glanced uncomfortably at her, confused.

Jace gave up as Isabelle walked past him, to the garage. He met Clary's eyes, still sitting at the island. He was right. Her red next to his gold was completely contrasting, but a perfect contradiction.

* * *

_A/N:_ **I know, I'm going to rot in hell. I am reallyreallyreally sorry, but school's been so hectic as of late, and it's been hard to find the energy to write. I swear on the angel that there will be Magnus/Alec interaction in the next chapter. And maybe even a kiss or two. And sorry again—there will be gaps in Sizzy's and Clace's relationship, since this obviously isn't about them.  
**

**I've also noticed that I'm horrible at keeping one point of view...I guess that'll come in handy for the blowjob scene...*considers*  
**

_Sidenote** A Celurit is an Indonesian battle knife; the blade is curved like a sphere._**  
**

xxShar [_is thinking: This chapter ticked me off. Magnus is so OOC. And Chloe? Don't even get me started. I want to stab her so much._]


	9. Losing My Religion

**CHAPTER NINE: _Losing My Religion_**

Maybe earth wasn't square nor round at all. Maybe it was shapeless, like black matter and acid—a smoldering cobalt and olive _mass_ of abhorrence and hidden religion. When Alec was younger, seven and eight, his parents would take him to mass, claiming that being in the presence of God would cleanse him of his unintentional sins. They were catholic.

Alec chewed on the end of his pencil, eyes scanning over the same question on his chemistry homework that he'd been staring at for the past ten minutes. He needed to be seeing "_proteins_" and "_carbohydrates_", but instead his tired mind blended the letters and all he saw when he blinked was "_lithium_" and "_magnesium_".

He wasn't really a religious person. He use to think God was real, because everyone else thought so, but now he didn't have the mind capacity to believe in a supernatural phenomenon that obviously favored him below the rest of the world. He believed that religion was bullshit that people told themselves to ease their guilty conscious. Of course, when he told people this they didn't hear "I'm not religious", they heard "I'm cannibalistic and encourage blood sacrifices." Needless to say he kept his beliefs to himself when he could.

He thought of his "carnival freak" best friend, the one that came out to him on his eleventh birthday, and how he'd said that if "God hadn't made me this way maybe I would believe in him." Did Magnus believe in God? If he did, he probably didn't care about going to hell very much. Alec had seen the condom stash he kept at the bottom of his dresser. He'd seen him bed-sheet wrestle with Camille that one time after homecoming.

His breathing picked up as his mind unconsciously floated to bright red lips and black eyeliner. Lips that could do wicked things, ungodly things. _Fucking god_, he thought, blinking twice. _Oh wait. That sounds bad. Freaking god then._

His room was becoming strangely tight, the air thickening in circles around his head, dancing to dust and shadows. Jace coughed.

He dropped his pencil and spun in the chair to see his brother. "Do you think I need a girlfriend?" He'd become rather acquainted with covering his sexuality.

"I—do I think what?" Jace said, startled from his laptop. He was lying on Alec's bed, legs in the air. Alec tried not to think about how he would find blonde hair on his sheets when he went to bed.

"Do you think I need a girlfriend?"

"That's blatantly subjective, don't you think?" Alec looked at him expectantly. There was a tense pause as Jace looked back and pursed his lips. "No, I don't think you need a girlfriend. I think you're doing just fine all on your own. _But_, I think it would do you some good to get out of your room every so often, just so you don't become more prudish than you already are." He said, and while Alec may have thought he was teasing, there was no smile on his face.

"I'm not a prude," scoffed Alec, under his breath.

"Yes you are."

"If I was I wouldn't put up with your stupid friends."

"_Please_. You didn't have to come to that party."

"Aline threatened me with a fucking _tampon_. I think I had to go to the party."

"You wrung that story out three years ago."

"Screw you."

"You're the one who asked."

Later that night, at nine o'clock, Alec opened the pill bottle. He accidentally let them slip out of his hands, and the whole bottle went racing to the floor.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Alicante was quiet Monday morning. Clouds loomed overhead, the storm from Friday night still not cleared. The sun was barely up, trying so hard to be spotted through the painted sky but it only cast the shadows darker. Cold air pricked at the fingertips of the students, most clumped in groups, not speaking, but settled in the atmosphere. A girl with bleach blond hair leaned on the lockers, reading. An Asian couple sat on a brushed steel bench, kissing softly and whispering between breaths. A boy with headphones in his ears was glaring at Sebastian Morgenstern from across the hall, no doubt planning revenge on him for something done in the past. The Clave and Council talked quietly in the courtyard, everything in sight damp from the humidity. Shades of gray and purple stood out against the darkened day, white lights strung up around the glass columns and spiral staircase, rays like daylight catching molecules in the air.

Alec watched the academy fill slowly as time passed, hidden, wedged between a set of pale green and bright yellow lockers and a wall. He kept the hood of his jacket up, iPod blasting _The Black Parade_.

He wasn't looking forward to the rest of the day—the teasing stares from the Clave, his brother and Simon coddling him because he was more depressed than usual, Isabelle jerking his hood down, urging him to socialize even though _he so clearly did not want to socialize_. He would pull it back up the second she disappeared in the mass of people, like he did every day.

Seeing Magnus.

He most definitely was not looking forward to that.

Heat rushed to his cheeks, and he buried his head further into the crease of the cool metal lockers and the tile wall, hoping to guard himself from any passing students. He didn't want to be seen today.

He wanted to disappear.

There was snickering a few feet away from him. Then a sharp reply from somebody he didn't know, a hiss, and footsteps.

"Are you—?" There was a girl in front of him now, red hair, a sharp nose and brilliant green eyes staring up at him. "Are you Alec Lightwood?"

_Damn it. Does it really look like I want you to talk to me?_

He nodded and pulled one of the ear-buds from his head. "Do you need something?" He faintly recognized this girl from lunch the previous week, when Jace was talking about her. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, fluffy strands filling around her face. A thin but dark black line surrounded her eyes, which he hadn't seen on her before. A teal shirt hung over jean shorts—it was painstakingly obvious that she wasn't from Manhattan. From the city girls he'd seen he knew they didn't dress in things like that. They weren't that short either. Maybe it was a stereotype thing. He guessed some of them, the stereotypes, had to be true though.

Magnus was a perfect stereotype.

"No, I just..." the girl—_what was her name again?_—looked at him peculiarly, like she was trying to unfold a puzzle in front of her. "Those people over there, they were talking about you,"

"I know, I heard." _I always do_.

"You didn't tell them to stop. Why didn't you—I mean, they were _right_ there. Why wouldn't you?"

He glanced away from her to behind her, across the hall to the glass wall, where he could see more and more clouds gathering, layering, the lawn becoming darker and darker. Students waiting out there were changing their minds to wait outside for the bell, and were quickly piling inside to await the rain. Thunder began to roll.

"I guess I'm just used to it," he said, wishing she would go away.

"But..." the redhead jacked a thumb to the left. He wasn't sure why; its not like there was anything to point at. "You're Alec _Lightwood_. I thought you would be—I mean, your sister—"

"My sister is a bit of a different story. She likes being noticed. I don't. Okay?" He said, agitation plain on the top of his throat. He could see that she was beginning to notice this.

He didn't mean to sound so rude. He was genuinely a pretty laid back guy, didn't like getting in the way of people or making them feel irreverent, but the lack of medication in his system was beginning to take it's effect on him. A headache was beginning to creep into him through his brain.

The girl gnawed on the inside of her cheek, thinking. "Sorry for bothering you then. I just assumed everybody in this school were snobs."

"You say that like you know us,"

"I don't. I just mean that most people I've met are conceited and egotistical. You're just kind of...grumpy and straightforward." He had to hold back a snort as she leaned into the edge of the lockers opposing him. _Grumpy_. Talk about understatement.

"I'm dealing with a few things,"

"By hiding in a corner?"

"Sure. It works sometimes."

"Okay, well, whatever I guess. Simon's the first person I met that wasn't an entire gossip-struck idiot. But he's from Brooklyn, so I guess that doesn't count. I've hung out with your sister a few times, and with Jace,"

He was almost interested at the topic of Jace, but decided it wasn't worth commenting on. Jace could get out of whatever shit he was digging himself into. "That'll get you nowhere, I promise. Jace is fast, and doesn't stop to fix the damage he makes. And Izzy? I don't she's cared enough about anything to care about a girl from Brooklyn," _Alright, that was harsh and you know it._ Luckily she didn't seem to take offense. His mouth was moving on autopilot now.

"I live in Queens, actually." she corrected. "She cared enough to force eyeliner on me this morning when I got here. She said something about my face being washed out by the lights in here or something,"

"She wants to be a fashion editor, for Vogue or some other overrated shit. It'd make sense if she wanted you looking good next to her." His words started fading in and out. What was he even doing here? He should have stayed home.

"I don't know. I suppose." She paused. "Well, um, I'm gonna go, but if you want someone to talk you, about whatever it is you're dealing with, I can help. I like helping people."

"Thanks, but I don't really think you could help anything. What's done is done, and it's not like I can go back and change it,"

"There's always something you can fix," she tried.

"But it'll never be the same, like it was. There will always be something there that isn't completely right, or healed. A hole that nothing can fill." _Oh yes, I should have stayed home_.

He buried his head again into the corner. He knew the girl must have been looking at him wide-eyed and probably like he was insane. He was; insane that is.

There was a moment's quiet, where it seemed like the entire school lowered their voices for his benefit. "I'm Clary, if you didn't know. I meant it. If you want to talk, I'm always willing. Isabelle has my phone number. Just call," _Oh great. Another therapist. This one's just a child too_.

He heard her footsteps as she walked away. His thoughts filled of things that came unwilling to him—glitter, water, red and black and gold. Lips and eyes and tongues and hands and bones and suction cups of hot air—teeth. Magnus' voice became so clear in his head that it sounded almost real.

It was real.

He peaked out from his corner, pulling the hood back from his eyes, but not so much that it fell from his hair.

It _was_ real. Not a figment of imagination. Magnus was here, walking through the tall marble doorway, talking distractedly to a boy he'd never seen before. His makeup was thick, harsh black around his eyes like raccoons, no glitter, hair spiked up but with no intricacy put into it. It wasn't an art, like Magnus liked it to be. His body wasn't a pallet that day. He was just black on grey on purple.

Like how Alec felt.

He went rigid at the sight. He wanted to back away again, fight the clawing inside his chest to give into this physical attraction that had driven him mad that entire weekend.

Magnus parted ways with the boy and went to join the Clave and Council in the courtyard, which Alec couldn't see from where he was standing, so he leaned back again, telling himself to breath. _Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale...  
_

_This doesn't mean anything. It's going to be fine. Magnus is here, and so am I, and everything is going to be fine..._

_And what did I tell you about lying to yourself?  
_

The bell rang, a poisonously sharp sound, and the footsteps that followed were thunderous. His headache pulsed once, and he stumbled forward, out of his hiding spot. If he craned he neck enough he would be able to see the courtyard. He did.

And came eye to eye with Magnus. It was dozens of feet away, but right then, his best friend looked in his direction, and it was gold-green on blue-grey. A pang of overwhelming familiarity hit him. He held a sob back in his chest, and his vision became misty. He wasn't sure if this was because of the actual mist fogging the air, or if his eyes were brimming with saltwater.

And then insanity.

Magnus, who looked just as pained as he did, was blurred out, the fog drifting, climbing, up everything, licking at his arms and legs and torso. His irises now glowing brightly in the hazy cantrip appeared like the sun behind the moon, and his pupils were slitting, black abysses crawling with demons and other teratoid things. Black swirls coiled out from them, cracking like dry rock and ice.

He blinked.

Everything was normal.

Everything was as it should have been.

Students making their way to classes, up and down the stairway, groups of boys and girls laughing and messing around outside the locker room doors, the Clave still observing; Magnus standing, staring at him, watching him—watching him twitch and bit his lip as the academy disassembled around him. As Magnus became the demon he always was in his dreams.

He took a shaky step back, and a girl swore at him for bumping into her, but he didn't apologize. He turned the other way, and disappeared into the mass of people.

Alec found himself in the science wing. It was deserted; the labs didn't open until noon. Off to the side there was a brown door that read _'Storage_' on a grey plate. He went to it, hand tentatively rotating the handle until it opened (he was thankful it wasn't locked). Before going inside he looked both ways down the hall to make sure nobody was there.

Inside it was musty, dark, and there were suspicious flutters, like cockroaches or other insects. He found a string in the center of the room and pulled on it. A dim fluorescent light lit the room. It was smaller than he thought. Large shelves lined the pealing walls; paint cans and test tubes resided in them. Sure enough, beetles were crawling in closed beakers on the floor.

It was better than being out there.

He locked the door and slid down the wall, bag by his side. That's how he sat for the rest of the day. His iPod died two hours in, so it was silent, and at one point it became so deathly quiet he started talking to himself, just to have something to listen to. Then he thought about sneaking out during a passing period, because Jace was bound to be wondering where he was during class, but he couldn't bring himself to get up.

By the time the final bell rang, he was demented.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

It was raining again. The sky darkened with clouds, and the small drizzle turned to a steady downpour. It wasn't hard rain though; it was restoring rain, somehow seeming against the odds of what was supposed to happen—turning the city into a strange sort of oxymoron. A light intention, but with a hellish purpose. The streets once more smoked with fog, churning vines of wet asphalt polluting their heads. The city of New York was catching a fire of apprehension, of confusion, as the vehemence of its residents melted into the gutters along with the rain. It was a bad omen, Alec knew, from his hours among hours of literary classes; yet he couldn't help but feel like he was the only one who saw the rain as a way to repent his sins (_fuck_, he thought. _I'm turning into my parents_). It took him back to the place he'd tried so hard to forget.

Apartment four-eighty-three. Gunshot. Green fabric. Green eyes. Lips like cherries. Thunder like clashing swords and lightening like dragon fire.

It'd only been two nights, but he was losing his mind in the most literal ways. Everything he saw boiled to blood behind his eyelids, the sky and grass shadowed over with clouds, casting demons under the soil and raising their dead from the underworld.

Oh. He'd stopped taking his pills again. This time, not because he thought he was better, but because he wanted to be worse (or maybe just because he'd dropped them in the trashcan and was too tired—or just didn't care—to get them out) Insanity was better than explosive hurt. It was the best thing to take his mind off of it.

But somehow his tripping feet brought him all the way to Brooklyn, in front of a steel door, below an aluminum awning, above concrete steps. He wanted to hear a gunshot, but only the rain was sounding.

Did he really want to do this?

He didn't know. He was completely disoriented. Mad. Bonkers. Out of his mind. _Scritch, __scritch_, _scritch_. Something was squeaking by the steps. He looked over. Rats, lots of them.

He rang the buzzer.

Seconds passed.

There was static, shuffling, and then a creamy, familiar voice. "_Do you know what freaking time it is. I swear to god if this_—"

"It's—It's me,"

Dormant silence.

Vaguely, he was aware that he was counting the seconds that ticked by. _Thirty one, thirty two, thirty three._ He could imagine Magnus leaning against the door, fingers threaded through his hair, trying to decide whether or not to reject his pathetic ass. _Thirty nine, forty, forty one—_

The buzzer went off and sudden living air made his ears ring. The lock clicked.

Then his throat constricted, and black and white strikes deadlocked his vision, and then the white went out, and the world went black.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Alec woke to the mid-city traffic, blaring horns and trash trucks. He was confused at first about the noise. He lived in Manhattan where there typically wasn't a lot of street sound until mid-morning. But it was Tuesday. It should've been early enough for him to go to school. But the sun...it had to be at least ten o'clock.

Then he realized. Trash trucks. Brooklyn mid-morning traffic. He didn't live in Brooklyn.

He was in fucking Brooklyn.

What was he doing in Brooklyn?

He opened his eyes and squinted at the sunlight hitting his face. Then he was confused because he didn't come face to face with the white wall of his bedroom, but grey worn wood framing the New York skyline outside, merely a silhouette next to the sun.

Alec groaned quietly, rolling over onto his back, listening to the bones in his arms and spine crackle, a pleasing sound compared to what he woke to. He went to sit up, but found himself sinking back into the mattress.

A mattress with broken springs. Fluffy unkempt pillows. A quilt that smelt like ash and honey oil.

Alec was wide awake now, scrambling up onto his knees. A bedside table stacked high with books, stringy transparent fabric hung over the bed, a map of Indonesia taped to the closet door, sewing machine on the floor, glitter and makeup pots on an electric blue vanity in the corner. Holy hell—

His head started to pound, and he realized that he couldn't remember anything from the night before. But now he was somehow here.

In an old wrinkled batman t-shirt and black jeans.

In bed.

In Magnus' room.

Alone.

Heart racing, he grappled at the sheets, trying to figure out what had happened to get him here. He remembered being at Alicante, seeing Magnus's eyes, glitter golden swirls of—and then black echoes roaming the hallway. Right, right, because he dropped the pills, so he'd been unmediated for hours. Things starting to get bad. Hiding in a storage closet all day. Going home...

Then nothing. He didn't remember anything after that. It was like it had been erased from his memory completely. But he knew what happened. He hadn't gone to get new pills soon enough. Things got bad again, and somehow he was here now, the night before just a time swiftly forgotten.

_Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—_

"You're awake."

Alec jumped at the voice, both his heart and body. His head snapped to the doorway, where Magnus was leaning against the frame that was falling apart. The spikes of his hair, even limping still, nearly touched the top of it.

Alec froze.

Magnus was had on silk purple pajama pants, and a loose fitting yellow tank top—it had a clown puking rainbows on the front (_only Magnus_, he thought). Glitter of all colors sprinkled his face, and a thick black ring of kohl eye shadow ringed his eyes. He was bare of accessories take for a single eyebrow piercing. He wore an unreadable expression, lips pierced and eyes narrowed.

Alec began to stammer, incomprehensible vowels and noises choking in the back of his throat. He was trying to say everything he had thought in the past two days, apologies and excuses and denial written in. It wasn't working very well. Heat flowed to his face, and he could feel the red staining his too-pale skin. He fell back onto the bed, feet getting tangled and caught in the messy sheets.

Magnus watched, and when Alec finally stopped trying to talk he chuckled, bringing a hand to his face.

"I did want to see you, but I had really hoped it wouldn't be because you showed up on my doorstep, absolutely delirious, at two in the morning,"

Alec in took a deep breath. "What?" He cursed himself silently when he realized his voice had cracked. He swallowed hard.

"Well," said Magnus, moving to the window. Alec's eyes followed him, brows creased. His lips parted, but his teeth stayed closed. "You weren't intoxicated, I'll tell you. If you were you'd probably be vomiting about now. And you would have the _worst_ hangover." Magnus sounded amused, smile at his lips. Alec was terrified and trembling because of it. "Let's be honest; you don't exactly handle your alcohol well."

_I don't handle you well either_.

"Do you remember anything about last night? How you got here?"

_Why are avoiding the elephant that is so clearly standing between us?_

He shook his head, hands loosing on the sheets as he tried to unwind his feet. He pushed his back against the headboard, legs scrunching tightly against his chest, like he was shying back away from Magnus. He was.

"I...no. I don't, I'm not, uh, I—"

_Lips that tasted of cherries too_. _Pulse point burning with blood, bruises bruising shades up and down of blues at the nape of his neck, descending from his ear. __  
_

Magnus looked at him funny again, as if he could see through his skull and was viewing the memories of their kiss like a movie, shining on the wall behind him. He shuck out of it.

"You have no idea how you got here? If Jace was with you? If you wandered here _alone_ in the middle of the night? God dammit," he groaned, looking away. "I should have called him."

Alec let out a shuddering breath, prepping himself mentally. "You—what happened? When I got here, I mean." He said, awfully quiet.

Magnus snorted an unamused laugh, rolling his eyes as he clicked his barbell between his teeth. "I wasn't kidding when I said you were delirious. I kept waiting for you to come up, but after a few minutes I went down to see if you were even still here. You were—lying there on the ground outside, muttering about rats and drowning in—well, never mind. I won't tell you that part. It's better you don't remember that. Your eyes were crossed, you were covered in mud and completely soaked, so I took you upstairs and—well, you don't need to know that part either. Just know that you were cleaned up and sent to bed,"

Alec was blushing hard again. What exactly had Magnus done to clean him? Come to think of it, he hadn't owned a batman shirt in...forever. This wasn't his shirt. And the jeans...they seemed tighter all the sudden. _Fuck. Oh shit_. Had Magnus actually—

His hand flew to his wrist, alarms blaring inside him. Luckily he felt the dry makeup still caked on his arms. _Thank god Isabelle buys the good stuff_.

"Chloe's at work, in case you were wondering. We're alone,"

"Why—why didn't you go to school?"

"Leave you here all alone? That's rude. I told Simon we ditched to go see _Wicked_,"

"The Broadway show?"

Magnus shrugged. "Seemed like a good excuse at the time."

Alec slowly unfurled his legs, feeling suddenly very much like he had the first time he spent the night with Magnus, back in middle school. Embarrassed, afraid he might do something humiliating, then realizing that it wasn't that bad when he saw other people making the same mistakes as him.

"Alec..." said Magnus after a moment of hesitation. "Why were you delirious last night?"

Alec looked down. "I...I threw my pills away. Accidentally, of course, and I meant to get more, but I didn't and...and...well—"

"You're fine right now?"

"...I think,"

"You think? You aren't seeing blood on the walls? Faeries in the corners? Sparks flying from my fingertips?" He said, twirling his hands around. "Every seems normal?"

"Yes,"

"Good."

For a simple moment, everything was perfect. They were best friends again, glued together like magnets. And then the fantasy shattered and reality set it. They weren't best friends anymore. Were they?

Tense quiet followed the exchange; Alec glanced unmoved at Magnus, who was still watching him profoundly, waiting for him to make the next move. He looked away—and looked back. Magnus still had eyes on him.

_Fuck_. Talk about awkward.

"Um..."

"Yes?"

Magnus sighed, a frustrated scowl on his face, when he saw that Alec was going to be no help. But then he remembered that he'd been the cause of this in the first place.

Magnus face softened, Alec saw, and he uncrossed his arms in defeat. "Do you want me to drive you home? Or would you like to stay and talk?"

"I'll...I'll stay."

Magnus held back a grin. "Well, best you get out of bed then. I'll be in the living room. Join me when you're ready,"

_When I'm ready? __How about never._

Magnus left his room, swinging the door slightly closed as he walked out. Moments later Alec heard Magnus speaking, muffled, to Chairman in a baby-like voice—something about "blue" and "ragged", he wasn't sure.

Dread injected into his lungs, Magnus the perfect syringe. He didn't know where this conversation was going to lead; he didn't know how it would end or how they would both walk away from it. But he had to try, for his sake and Magnus'.

_Oh, I am so screwed_.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The living room smelt of burned roses, sweet and sugary, acerb and dead; scented candles lined every surface, most already burnt out. Charms of protection and serenity hung from above the television and fire place (there was an iron plate over the opening, but ashes still covered the floor surrounding, though Alec couldn't be sure if they were from a fire)—faded purple flowers, tied at the stems, dangling loosely against the grey brick wall; darker gems hung as well, casting continuously moving shadows over the floor. Books on the wall-shelf were sorted by color.

Alec lingered in the doorway, hands lightly scaling the frame. Magnus was...well, he was doing what he guessed would have qualified as pacing. Long strides over the carpet, not really in any set direction, muttering to himself so that Alec couldn't hear what he was saying. The Chairman was watching with a wagging tail up on the top shelf on the bookcase, towering over both of them.

"_Jesus Christ_," Alec snapped his attention back to Magnus. He was facing him, and he'd stopped pacing. He was standing back, hand over his heart, gripping the shirt like it was keeping his skin in place there. "_You scared me_,"

Magnus took a few steps back, falling backwards onto the leather sofa faking exhausted. He pulled the end pillow out from under him and held it to his chest, digging his legs into the fabric under him.

"I was just standing here," Alec said with a quiet voice, crossing his arms. He took a step into the room, hair falling over his eyes.

"There's tea in the kitchen, if you'd like some—"

Through the bar Alec could see a kettle kindling on the stove top. "I'm fine," Alec declined quickly, knowing all too well that Magnus was trying to make small talk, to avoid the broken and beaten conversation ahead of them. It wasn't working. He still felt like his chest was about to implode on itself.

Magnus jerked his head, motioning Alec to the other end of the sofa. Alec eyed it, before looking back at Magnus.

"Do you want me to...?"

"Sit? Would you like to?"

_Not really_. "Sure," _The closer the better_, he thought.

Alec took small steps to the other side of the room, and getting closer to Magnus he found that breathing became harder. The closer he got the more real it became. Magnus' eyes were on him the entire time, long fingers pulling at the loose strings on the pillow. Alec guessed he was just as nervous as he was, by the fidgety movements—Alec wasn't sure why. He didn't have reason to be.

Alec was grinding his teeth together so hard by the time he pressed his knee into the leather, clumsily adjusting himself so that he was sitting cross-legs across from Magnus. They were looking at each other, only the sounds of their breathing being heard.

"You, um...you wanted to talk," Alec stuttered out after a moment. This was the moment he was suppose to be confident and picky about his words, making his decisions and points clear to Magnus to avoid future embarrassment—but he'd never been good with words, not like Jace. He was blunt and didn't think before he spoke.

Sitting here finally with Magnus was shifting his thoughts in a way. He suddenly didn't feel so _wrong _inside, about being almost intimate with his best friend. In fact, it almost felt _right_. Well, not right, but further from wrong then it should have been. The past days have been him constantly turning himself away, telling himself that what he was doing was immoral and bad—but maybe, just maybe, it wasn't.

Maybe the rain had been restoring.

But who was he kidding?

"I do still," confirmed Magnus. "Unless you'd rather leave?"

Alec shook his head. "I don't...really...know where to start. If I should...I mean, there's a lot to—to say, I think, but I—"

"Let's start," Magnus cut in, "With," he paused, leaning forward on his elbows. "your sexual orientation."

Alec felt the start to another blush flow to his face, and he so desperately wanted to hide behind his arms, or bury his entire body in a mountain of unbreakable steel, just to dodge every needle poked into him. Magnus was going hard.

His sexual orientation. Oh god. He wasn't ready for this, wasn't sure he'd ever be ready. It was a secret, a secret he'd never planned on telling, a secret so well kept that not even his sister knew.

He choked on air. His face scrunched up like he was in pain, and Magnus just watched devoted to his statement. He already knew the answer. _If the boy's going to start talking it should probably be before he dies from lack of oxygen to his brain._

"I'm gay," Alec choked behind his fist. For the first time that morning he felt the urge to sob.

Magnus regarded him carefully, a cautious flash across his face, eyes less imitating than they usually were. He reached out, and tried to gently put a hand on Alec's knee, but the boy jerked away without looking at him. His eyes were beginning to become bloodshot, red and white breaking out around them.

Magnus leaned back again. "I know," he said. "I've known for a while,"

"How?" Alec asked, a bit too loud for the quiet room, rocking in varying directions with a hand pressed against his lips.

"Like I said—I've watched you for so long. These things become apparent Alexander—"

"_Don't call me that_," Alec snapped. His emotions were playing the wild card with his head.

"Alec, then. I've watched you through everything, everyday, waiting for you to do _something_ to deny my theories. But you didn't. And then we—" he stopped. "So I know, at least now for sure if I wasn't before,"

Alec didn't respond for a while. He gave himself a minute or two to control his bodily reactions, his mental reactions. He hated the way he was acting. He couldn't help it. He was okay, and then he was tethering at the edge of a cliff. _So freaking bipolar_. "So you...you knew, all this time, and you never said anything? Why didn't you?"

"I wasn't about to push you into a situation you weren't ready for. You'd come to me when you were ready," said Magnus. "But I am curious. Why didn't you tell me? It's not like I have much room to judge,"

Alec ponder for a moment, bringing back all of his excuses. "I...I guess I just..." He sucked on his bottom lip. "I think I was just...I knew you wouldn't...I mean..."

_Come on now, make up your mind_, Magnus thought.

"...I was scared."

"...You were scared." Magnus said blankly. "Of what, exactly?"

"Of what it meant. Magnus," _Oh god, that's the first time I've said his name out loud in three days._ "Things just...come easy to you; the flamboyancy, the, the, never being outspoken, being loud and prideful and just completely _fearless_ all the time..." Alec antagonized, finally making eye contact with him. _Fearless, that's what I want_. He started to get, not angry, but a dark (lack of medication, again) ire coveting inside his lungs. "I can't do that! I can't be honest with everybody else if I can't be honest with myself. I can't expect people to accept me because _I_ can't accept me," he fumed. "Do you know what my parents would say if they knew?" Alec inquired. Magnus looked astounded from where he was. "They wouldn't say _anything_. I can see it, everyday, in the back of my head. They would shake their heads, and everything about them would have disappointment written over it. And Jace would freak out," He muttered, hand entangled in his hair.

"_Jace_," Magnus said. "Has been my best friend for years now. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have anything to say about you being—"

"_Magn__us_," Alec snapped, sounding tired. "What I mean to say is that you like attention. I don't. I already get enough of it as it is, and if people knew about this then I would get twice as much. Jace might not care, but he definitely wouldn't leave me alone."

"It's _who you are. _You can't hide that part of you—"

"But I have. For six years."

Magnus' eyes widened a fraction. "Six years? That's..." _Longer than I thought_. "You were...thirteen? Fourteen?"

"I guess, sure."

"You can't bottle up your feelings like that. It'll drive you insane,"

"I'm already insane."

Silence fell between them, both repeating their words in their heads, trying to make sense of them.

"Things are going to change. Between us, I mean." said Alec. "Aren't they?" Magnus stayed quiet. "I mean...you told me that you...that you..."

"Loved you?" Alec flinched. "I did. And I meant it. But I'm not expecting you to say it back—ever, even. I use to hope that maybe you might even fall for me the same way I did for you, and that in some twisted way we'd have some sort of an ending, together. But you obviously don't want that. So I'm offering you an out, right now. If you want to forget this entire weekend, forget that it ever happened, erase it from the past, and just pick up where we left off, then we can. I won't stop you."

Magnus remembered the conversation he'd had with Chloe the day before—about not being able to function if he couldn't have a chance with Alec, and here he was, giving away his heart and willingly let his love crush it with an iron hammer.

He was so incredibly stupid.

"I guess," Alec stated, feeling like it was a requirement for him to elaborate. "That I always...always, though you were, um, attractive," An embarrassed blush rose to his cheeks.

_Well this is a turn of events_, Magnus thought amused.

"But I never really, uh, really though about it like, like _that_ before. But now that I have, and that you..." Alec ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "I don't know how I feel."

"What do you think that means? For us?"

"I think...I think it means...that I don't want to forget." Alec said, gathering his confidence. Suddenly it wasn't the insanity that was driving him—it was light. Granted, a very dull light, but it was still brighter than the night.

Magnus was very confused. He didn't like being confused. "I'm not sure where you're going with this," he drew out with narrowed eyebrows.

"Neither do I. I can't just...jump into this _thing_ with you just yet. And maybe I won't ever be able to. But...I have these thoughts, always contradicting with each other, and I never know what I want. Sometimes I think being with you is okay. And then I think it's not. I don't know."

"You don't have to know Alec. That's what high school is for. Figuring it out. We'll get there, or we won't, and that's okay. I told you I'm okay with being you're friend. I can learn not to love you,"

_Risk everything, or risk nothing?_ Alec thought.

Alec was surged with a pulse of bravery, and then he was pushing up off of his knees, leaning forward on one hand and entwined the other at the nape of Magnus' neck, pulling him close.

He kissed him hard.

Magnus gasped, barely catching himself from falling off the couch. _What the hell is—_There was harsh pressure on his lips, his teeth clattering together. More pressure at his neck, pulling at the ends of his hair. Shots of blood and strange pleasure tingled at the base of his spine.

When Alec pulled back, he was breathing hard, leaning back on the ball of his heals. Heat flooded his entire face, humiliation surfacing at the top of his mind. _Oh my god, what did I just—_

Magnus, stunned silent, looked at him with his mouth opened, eyes widened. "That was, um, well..." _Speechless_. Alec glanced away to the floor, physically abusing himself inside for being so... "Did that help you figure things out?" Magnus asked, fingers at his lips.

"...no, not really."

"Then why did you...just..."

"I thought it was good to be spontaneous."

"When you know what it is that you want." Magnus said, glancing at the clock. _Eleven fifteen_. "We are both in very messy mindsets right now. Let's go out. We can taxi to Manhattan Psychiatry Center to pick up—your stuff, and then we can grab some lunch. Alright? Just give me the day Alec." Magnus swung his legs over the side of the couch and stood, offering a hand out to Alec.

_Give you the day? To do what?_ "Okay." he agreed on a whim, cautious. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish?" Alec held his hand out to Magnus, and he took it, pulling him to his feet. It was warm, familiar.

"I want to make you see that being yourself isn't such a bad thing,"

"And what about us?" Alec said, stepping closer to him. Their hands were still lightly touching.

Magnus answered, "I'm your best friend. I always will be, unless you decide to change that, for the good or bad. Just know that I won't stop trying."

Their faces were close, not touching, but Alec could feel hot breath mixing with his own. "This is so weird," he said, and Magnus tightened the grip on his hand.

"Oh darling," Magnus said, bringing their foreheads together. "This is only the beginning."

* * *

_A/N: _**I cannot write these days to save my life and I feel awful about it. I'm really sorry guys.  
**

**Alright, things about this chapter. This chapter is fucking bipolar. I like it, but I don't. I don't feel like enough insight was given as to _why_ Alec and Magnus said the things they did. Hopefully I can expand on that next chapter. It was rushed because I wanted to get this out already.  
**

**And sorry. I wasn't expecting this to be so long.  
**

**Review maybe?  
**

xxShar [_is thinking: My thoughts to those in New York/Jersey. Stay safe._]


	10. Take My Breath Away

**CHAPTER TEN: _Take My Breath Away_**

Manhattan Psychiatric Center was Alec's most despised place. It was full of people, just like him, whose sanity had faded just a bit too much, too far beyond restoration. There was a part of him, and he didn't know how dominant that part was, that knew and related to these people so well. They were children, adults, elders, anyone with a beating heart and blood in their veins, and they were all gifted with the gift of not being gifted. He only had so much time left before that happened to him.

The walls of the center, which was right off of the East River, were high and white, the floors glossy and plastic-glass-like (to avoid injury of course); it smelled strongly of anesthetic and sickness, the influx of humans, misery and vomit, stale coffee. The nearly LSD lights gave an unrealistic glow to the silent asylum—it was too bright; there were too many reflections, not enough dark spots.

The drive to the center had been short enough, for the most part quiet. It was still drizzling but the sun had finally breached the clouds, rays were striking through. He was lucky the center didn't have windows, or else he would have been blinded.

Alec wandered the empty halls now, seeing the occasional passing nurse or doctor, and they would wave at him, or smile; he knew the layout like the back of his hand because he'd been there so many times. It started when he was a kid. Now he was an adult. The staff knew him, he knew the staff. They were friends, almost, besides the part where they gave him drugs and use to tell him bedtime stories.

_The Disney ones_, he remembered. _The one with the princess and the frog_.

He walked slowly down the continuing corridor, metal tables fixed up the walls, locked doors with _'do not disrupt'_ written in black marker on the glass windows. He knew what that meant. He'd had that on his door when he was six.

Continuing on he turned a corner, into a different wing now. The, what he called, Defunctionalized Wing. Maybe the rest of the building was quiet, the only sounds heard murmurs and footsteps, but this wing, The Defunctionalized Wing, it was like being deaf. Once you entered, the quietness was overwhelming. It was too much. The silence was so big and seemed to creep under every crack and tile and hole in the wall. It was like being in a room full of dead people. Suddenly your heart stops, your breathing recedes, your footsteps become so soft they become indefinable.

It was a quiet-game worthy of cringe.

There were no beeping heart monitors. No squeaking wheels of the medicine carts, no sounds of calming breaths or sobs. Just utter stillness.

Alec knew he wasn't supposed to be in here—it was reserved for those patients that went overboard insanity, the ones that had to be sedated and put under to be mediated and calmed down. And when they woke up the shrills would echo down the halls, and moments later it would be put out again, the doctors injecting fluids and medicines under their skin. These patients weren't just insane. They were gone. Their minds had blacked out. There was no bringing them back.

But there was no warning sign that read '_Keep Out'_. The doors had been wide open, no chains or barriers to block him. And he needed somewhere to go. He couldn't just sit in the waiting room with Magnus. Too much had happened in the past twenty four hours and he needed a distraction. This distraction. A silent one.

After all—he had once been in The Defunctionalized Wing before. Only for one night, when he was twelve. But still. He thought he deserved special privileges when it came to the quiet things.

He stopped and turned his head to look at the one of the doors. This one was different—it had a black board hanging over the top, chalk and an eraser in a container beside it. Written on the board was a quote, a set of words he recognized from somewhere. _'And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming'._

He tilted his head. _How peculiar. How ordinary_. He peered through the window (the black wires in the glass were making it hard to see clearly, which was probably the intent) and saw a man inside, standing in front of a bed. The curtain was pulled over it, so he couldn't see who was in the bed, but there were pale feet sticking out from the sheets.

The man had thick grey hair, and withered skin, wrinkled and pulled tight in the wrong places on the exposed areas, the sleeves of a lab coat rolled up to his elbows. A bright green broach was clipped to the pocket. He was speaking softly, mouth moving without rest.

Axel Mortmain—he was an angry man, with what Alec's guessed to be a lot of issues. He was cruel, demanding of patients that couldn't help but be useless and lagging. Wasn't that why they were called patients? Alec remembered dealing with him once...

"Alexander Lightwood? Is that you?" Alec jumped at the break in the still-air, like a knife cutting through bone, tripping over his own feet as he turned around.

"Mr. Herondale," he shied back with tingling fingertips, nerves rushing up him. Edmund Herondale was a tall man, thin and scrawny. Black hair prickled around the top of his head and around his face. Blue eyes like his shined white in the lighting. He was Will's father, and on more than one occasion had filled in for his therapist, who'd he'd stopped seeing before summer.

"Mr. Lightwood, I'm sorry but you aren't allowed to be back here. This is a private wing—"

"I know, I know, I'm sorry. I was just—the waiting room was stuffy, and I needed to stretch my legs, that's all—" he rambled.

"In the abatement unit?" Mr. Herondale looked at him doubtfully. "Come then," He turned and began to walk the other direction, motioning for him to follow. Alec knew he would be in trouble if he didn't.

He took one last glance into the window. Axel Mortmain wasn't there. Neither were the feet. The curtain was pushed back and there there was a bed. The sheets were made, straight, pillows kept clean. There was nobody in the room. The black board didn't have a thing written on it.

Mr. Herondale led him out of the wing knowing perfectly fine that Alec knew the way out. Alec followed him numbly. Maybe it was time to burn his bloodstream again.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The morning was a daze; Alec remembered it in bits and pieces. Dark and bright hallways, another hospital bed, pills. The smell and taste of alcohol and medicine and blood and white cotton—that oily stuff that nurses rub on your skin to let you breathe. It was static and inert. He was stoic and indomitable; it, the hospital, was a frozen timeless box of nothing absolute, and he was part of it, circumscribed, barred off from everything else that wasn't.

Then they left; silent. Magnus hadn't said a word. He handed him a dull foil bag, the one that had his self-destruction, at the moving doors and motioned to the car. It's purple, like Magnus after he'd gotten dressed. Cerise leather pants, black shirt, platform boots, also illuminant violet.

And blue glitter.

Cerulean shredded diamonds.

Magnus knew Alec's favorite color was blue. Blue was addictive and ornery, two things that Alec wholly was. Magnus adapted that unknowingly, until he'd reached for the blue glitter this morning without thinking. Blue was his favorite color.

Now in the car, black interior, Alec had blue spots dancing in front of him like stars. _Is this real?_

It was real—glitter in the air. Magnus was shedding. _Finally something tangible that's of the non-demented sort of beauty._

"Are you all right?" Magnus asked him, starting the engine.

Alec crossed his legs. There was something now that he was finally starting to notice, like the rest of the small things he'd picked up on after they kissed. Magnus' voice sounded like honey, dripping and sticky but also like ancient violin strings, like a different language but still lucid. Like singing, all the time.

"Fine." he said, brushing off Magnus' concern like nothing. He felt something tugging in the back of his mind, trying to make him remember that it _wasn't_ nothing.

It was real. Like everything else.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

They sat in a cafe, Alec waiting for a silence; Magnus waiting for a word.

The worse god damn part was being a _thing_ to contain. A robot to disconnect. A monster to control. He couldn't feel anything. He was numb. Fucking antipsychotics (all the doctors that gave them) could do that to you. He twirled the small plastic bottle between his hands, biting his lip.

_Side effects: Fever, confusion, uncontrollable vomiting, severe headaches, fainting, lightheadedness, unusual bleeding, swelling of throat, prolonged erec—_

_Oh. _Alec pulled it under the table and read it again. Red suffused through his cheeks. At least he felt something.

"You're blushing," said Magnus from across the table, a tiny smirk pulling at his lips. "Why are you blushing?"

Alec jerked his head up, hitting his hands on the wood underneath the table, fumbling with the container so he didn't drop it. After getting his hands under control he set it down on the plastic-y material of the booth.

"I'm not," he muttered, returning back to his menu.

Taki's was the reminisce of what once was going to be a prison. High iron bars guarded the window, strips of shadows cast over the walls; the floor, while black and white, had raised metal crosses to prevent running (from guards, he supposed), and the door to the kitchen was actually the door to a prison cell, where they had installed stoves and counters, steel bars on the freezer door and all. Taki's embraced the reputation, putting things like '_Handcuffs are not all that bad, trust us.'_ in their fortune cookies.

Alec, not really alive enough yet (monster, robot, thing)—_empty_—heard Magnus ordering coffee—oddly with cream—and some strange-sounding vegan dish. Alec told the waitress the first thing he saw on the menu, and he wasn't sure what it was, but again, _not alive yet_. She looked at him strangely, winking still, and flipped her hair and left after he glared at her with dark eyes.

He was tired. He was numb (feeling was beginning to regain in his head though, like squeezing red dye into water, slowly, drip by drop, tick by tock).

This was real.

What were they going to talk about again?

"You,"

"Did I say that out loud?" Alec asked, sinking back into the sticky leather.

Magnus made an acknowledging sound in the back of his throat.

"I thought you wanted to—"

"Today isn't about me." Magnus said, his voice monotone, but his eyes softer, face relaxed. "We can't very well discuss _us_ until we can openly talk about _you_."

"Oh."

Magnus leaned forward on his elbows, bracelets clinking together.

Now the dripping dye was a steady stream, warming and making his vision sharper. Damn risperidone—they were like hormone dimmers, except in this case brighteners.

The waitress came back to drop off the coffee, with a little glass pitcher of cream. She winked at Magnus, and threw a teasing grin at Alec; he wrinkled his nose when she walked away.

Alec watched as Magnus tipped the cream into the black coffee. Swirls of white spun around, blending and diffusing with the bitterness. The final color though wasn't the color it should have been, with the sun pouring into the room. It turned a shady orange color, drinking in the shadows and sunlight. It was close to the color of Magnus' own skin, which Alec saw now that his hand rested on the handle of the cup.

For a moment Alec closed his eyes and remembered kissing that skin, salty and oil-like, the taste of all human skin. Alec wondered if that's what his own skin tasted of, sea water and colored candle wax. Magnus' lips closed around the rim of the mug when Alec opened his eyes, and he couldn't rip his eyes away—angel lips, that were glossy purple today, and that left an imprint on the white glass when he pulled away to swallow and that tongue that just barely peaked out to lap the remaining drip—

"You're staring," Magnus said, hitching an eyebrow. There was an almost smile on his lips; it was confused.

Alec gasped back softly, heart racing like a monitor. Yes, the dye was a river now, a fast flowing one. Monster, contained, just like always. _Real, real, real_. Magnus chuckled behind a hand that was cleaning his lips—angel lips—of excess coffee.

"So," Magnus sat the mug down, wiped the back of his hand on the leather of his pants, and picked up the coffee again. "Your parents,"

Alec sat up, rather surprised. "My parents? What about them?"

"You aim to please them, don't you? They're obviously a part of your..." he searched for the right word, taking another sip. "restricted self," he said, muffled, into the mug.

"I..." Alec was at lost for words. "They like order," he said slowly, considering. "A...straight path, to speak,"

"_Straight_," Magnus approved under his breath smugly.

"They—don't really like—abnormal things," Alec was beginning to stutter again, which was completely counter of what Magnus wanted.

"So you try not to be abnormal." Magnus guessed (knew, more so).

Despite all he knew about his best friend, if he could even call him that, Magnus didn't actually know a whole lot about Alec's relationship with his parents. He knew the Lightwoods worked with the government, and that they were never around for their kids, but that was basic knowledge, he supposed. There had to be more than that—after all, all families had secrets.

"I guess so," Alec shrugged. He felt looser. _The red dye maybe?_ "Even though they aren't really ever around, it's sort of an unspoken punishment if we break their normality."

"There isn't anything wrong with breaking the rules every now and then, Alexander." assured Magnus, watching his motions.

Alec flushed at the intensity of his stare. His own eyes jumped around.

"Who's to say what is or isn't abnormal?" he solicited, remaining ignorant.

"Haven't we already had this conversation? Psychotic father, witch aunt, wears things not even a stripper would go near...? Ring a bell?" Magnus said in a—as always—instrumental-like voice. Where were those violin strings again?

"Yes Magnus," Alec said, irritated. "but brushing off your own problems because someone else has it worse doesn't mean your own don't exist. It's just as bad, in my parents eyes. Being," Alec cringed slightly, but just enough for Magnus to notice. "gay, living off of medicine and growing up in hospitals...it's abnormal, to them. And they're my parents, and I'm suppose to be able to make them happy, so...what I want doesn't really matter,"

"That's so untrue," Magnus argued immediately, sitting forward and laying his arms flat on the marble surface, pressed against each other. "and you know it. That's the whole point, Alec, to get you to understand that being _gay_," Magnus put emphasis on the word. "isn't bad; that being schizophrenic doesn't make you a horrible person. You are you, and if your parents want you to change that, then they don't deserve to be your parents."

Alec clenched his fist, trying to calm his breathing. The waitress came around again, this time with their food. They both ignored her flirty little "Can I get you anything else?" and the plates in front of them. She walked off with a huff.

"My parents have a place." he said, bringing his voice to almost a whisper. "They're successful and known. Isn't that the kind of thing everybody is suppose to want to look up to? Even if they don't deserve to be my parents, they are _still_ my parents, and they'll always have expectations that I won't be able to reach—"

"Then ignore them," Magnus cut in. "You don't need to make them happy because this isn't their life. Okay? Blood isn't love. If the only connection you have is your relatability then don't try to make one. It'll only fall apart in the end."

_Of course Magnus would know all about that_.

An odd kind of quiet descended over them, one that Alec hadn't touched before. It was the kind of silence that he was waiting for, but the kind he didn't ever want to set eyes on. It was the kind that didn't need words at all; a finished conversation. He pushed his untouched plate away and looked down at his hands, back to twirling the pills around under the table.

The door chimed. Alec felt numb again. _Drip, drip, drip, drip...drip...drip..._

_...drip.  
_

"Look," Magnus sighed out of annoyance and frustration. "Abnormal just means..." He tugged on one of the spikes in his hair, so painfully hard. "Abnormals are the misfits, the bad kids. That's why they call them teenagers. The ones that don't fit in exactly, the strange ones, the ones that break the rules but stay totally in line. It's a hard line to cross, and...I don't think you have, not yet. I don't care what your parents or anyone else tells you. You're perfect, alright?"

_"There isn't a single part about you that isn't perfect to me."_

Alec shut his eyes again and let out a shaky breath. "Can we get out of here? I'm not really hungry anymore,"_  
_

Too real.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

They were in the car again; Magnus drove aimlessly in circles around the block, half listening to the golden boy.

"_Where _is_ he, Magnus?"_ he was demanding. Magnus could hear the clashing of symbols in the back, fuzzed yelling across the phone line. Eric?

"He's with me. Didn't Simon tell you?" Magnus said dismissively, balancing the phone between his shoulder and cheek. Alec watched the exchange from his spot in the passenger side.

"_Yeah, and there are no showings for Wicked today, jackass."_

_"_I assure you, he's fine." He held his finger over the disconnect button.

"_He hasn't come home in a day and a half; how am I suppose to know that?!" _Magnus pressed down on it, delightfully more amused than in Taki's._ "__Don't you dare hang up on me Magnus Bane—"_

The triple beep.

Magnus smiled over at Alec, who had his knees up to his chest in the seat. He wasn't nearly as amused as Magnus appeared to be.

"What'd he say?"

"He swore me out for kidnapping you. At least he cares." Magnus shrugged, tossing the phone into the cup holder.

"Where are we going?"

"Where do you want to go?"

Alec paused, chewing on his bottom lip. "I don't know."

"Do you want to go back to the apartment?"

"So we can talk?" Alec said sharply, mimicking Magnus' earlier voice.

"So we can talk,"

"I'm sick of talking,"

"Too bad. We're doing it until—"

"Yeah, I know."

Magnus watched Alec in the corner of his eye a little dolefully, sad for himself but more sad for Alec, who was clearly struggling. _Maybe he's right. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this—_

Alec turned away from him and laid his head against the cold glass, shutting his friend out. He was tired—of moving, of breathing. He wanted to go home and sleep (and hopefully not wake up). He didn't tell Magnus this because: _real._

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_BANE 483_, on a gold plate.

Something about living in Greenpoint was rare; in fact, living in Greenpoint at all was rare, unless you were Polish and in dire need of a job. It was old abandoned factories and everything was made of rusting metal; like some weaponry carnival of dissonance.

Everything was metal.

The two entered the complex (which was only inhabited by a few residents, mind you, because of the metal flakes that constantly ended up in the air) through a faded purple metal door, and climbed a faded green carpeted staircase, and brushed their finger along faded carmine wall—the railing, of course, was metal.

When once the apartment was filled with the aroma of roses, now these roses were burning. It was dusting snow, a cold, wet, cobble street lit by gasoline lamps and jars of fireflies, if it had a smell. The lights were low when they entered, but other than the stench (Ignore it, Magnus had told him when they took a few steps into the flat. It was hard to do; it made him dizzy, lightheaded (or maybe that was the pills?); he stumbled once, but Magnus caught him by the arm and pulled him into the kitchen) and the dim lights, everything seemed quite ordinary.

Alec must have realized sometime after Magnus disappeared into his room that Chloe was here. The office door was closed. He wondered why Magnus didn't say anything, but pushed the thought aside when he remember what Chloe actually did while the office door was closed. Construction, potion, magic. Dim lights, burning roses.

He caught his reflection in the metal paneling above the ironwork stove.

He was a mess with wide eyes; somehow, a newer lineament. His expression was...for once, nonchalant, like he was more calm than before. Which he was, in a way. He was speaking, if only a little, about a hidden part of him, to someone, no matter how intrusive, that he really cared about. It was new, and made him new. Tendrils of green fluttered across the top of his thoughts, like smokey tentacles waiting to entice him to someplace dark—or in this case, somewhere light.

"Here. I was looking for this." Alec twisted his torso to see past the bar. Magnus emerged from his room, holding out a small black device in his hand. It was his phone. He pushed his elbows off the island when Magnus came into the kitchen and took it back.

"Thank you. I was wondering..." He trailed off. There were several missed calls, three from Jace, and four from Isabelle. Isabelle's messages were more casual (_Please text me back so I know you're okay_), and Jace's were a bit harsher (_Call me back you ass_), but Alec couldn't care less anyway.

He threw the phone down next to him; it landed with a thud on the cold marble. He tried to smile at Magnus, but he was looking away, and must have missed it.

A gingering thump broke out. Alec wasn't sure what was causing it, but it stimulated his mind; there were now tiny alarms going off in his head, a tiny drip that wasn't red but orange; it was changing the risperidone chemical in him. The roses went away, and was replaced with a coppery tint. Smoke and thumping—next what? Those violin strings again? _Not the place for that_. Magnus looked up too, eyes lingering on the office door before returning to Alec. He leaned backwards over the bar top hands gripping the surface.

"Chloe knows, by the way. I told her, about...Friday."

Eyes fractionated, becoming blank-like after a held down flush, Alec said, "Oh. That's...um, what did she say? I mean, did she—was she..." His voice was daunted, and he held his hands together below his waist. His fingers began scratching at the skin there on his palm—a bad habit, that often induced bleeding. He forced them apart.

"She," _Kind of freaked out, _Magnus thought, wetting his lips. A bit of purple smeared off onto his teeth. "She was, er, a bit surprised, I suppose. She has reason to be." he shrugged. "But I think she accepted it, although not without a bit of questioning."

"What kind of questioning?" Alec said, a bit hesitatingly. Chloe was...not a friend, but someone he had known for a long time, and someone he knew on a personal level. Actually, not too personal, but still. He related to her—to her outcasted-ness. He recognized her as someone like him.

Magnus almost flushed. "Oh, only simple things. It doesn't matter."

_"You don't really understand how real this is for me."_

"Okay." Alec diverted his eyes awkwardly back to the office door. The thumping was steady now, low, like distant thunder even. _What was she doing in there?_

That thumping though...it was doing something to him, making his heart beat faster.

When Magnus didn't say anything else, Alec then ventured around the bar, past Chairman sleeping diligently on the floor (poor guy was almost stepped on—twice) and pushed the cream-and-rot-colored door to Magnus' room. He could feel Magnus' eyes on him, narrowing but not moving.

Just through the opening was the bed (_that bed_) which he strode to before he could change his mind. He sat down on the edge, the sound of the familiar spring creaking filling his ears. He sat there, fumbling with his hands until Magnus stood back in the doorway a few minutes later, eying him skeptically, just like this morning, just not like the other night, when they both were on the bed.

"What are you doing?" Magnus asked. Alec continued to stare down at his hands.

"You said earlier...that you shouldn't be spontaneous unless you know what it is that you want." he said, laying back carefully, head just barely missing the wall. Magnus would say his eyes were relaxed or even dreamy (in the sense that he was, well, relaxed) but he saw the barest amount of red pricking from his hand, just under the knuckle. He sighed and grabbed a washcloth from the bathroom, sitting down on the side where Alec had been moments before. He picked up the hand without resistance from the blue eyed boy and clotted the fabric over the ripped skin.

"You have to stop doing that to yourself."

"It's a bad habit. I know."

Looking at the same ocean-colored eyes as someone else, Magnus remembered a puff of smoke, and a cough and a police car. "Remember when Will came back from England, like, five years ago? And all he could say was _bloody_ this _bloody _that. Bloody hell and bloody habit." Magnus chuckled, despite the bad feelings that came with talking about it. Alec didn't laugh.

"Did you love Will?" Magnus, not having been asked this before, was was a bit startled; it was not the point he was trying to make. He recovered quickly, and pressed the material harder into Alec's hand.

"I thought I did. Everyone thinks they love the first person they have sex with. It's a human thing, I guess," he shrugged it off, not really sure why they were talking about this. Or how it even came up. Why was he thinking about Will just because—oh. Right. Black hair, blue eyes, bad habits. Smoke with one and blood with another.

"Alec..." his eyes wondered off to Alec's face. _So beautiful, like always, even with tired eyes and a frown._ "Have you figured out what you want?"

Alec stared up at the ceiling, feeling numb once again. The thumping was through the walls now. Sunlight streamed into the room, pushed around the clouds. It hurt his eyes.

"I want someone."

"I'm not—"

"I'm talking, right? That's what you wanted? Well, did you know that I use to like Jace. Like, _like like_ Jace. More than a brother. I think it started when I first met him, just something about him was charismatic and magnetic. I didn't start to notice until I was thirteen, or fourteen maybe, but I kept it to myself. He started dating that girl, and I got over it. But I guess that's how I knew I was gay. Watching him."

Magnus dropped the washcloth, but not Alec's hand.

"That's..." Magnus was kind of aphonic. He didn't know exactly how to process anything Alec had just said. _So while I was in love with him...he was in love with...someone else?_ "I think...I think the pills are making you sort of high. Maybe we should—"

"Yeah, I kind of can't think feel anything right now, but my head's on straight, I'm sure. I know what I'm saying. You don't need to undermine me, like everyone else does. Weren't you the one saying that my parent's shouldn't do that?" Alec had one of those smiles on his face, where you tried to be happy so you wouldn't cry.

_God, he's never been so snappy before..._

Alec sat up, pulling his body away from Magnus'. Bolts of _something_ rippled into his head. The thumping got louder. Magnus got up, and shut the door. For a fast second he desperately wanted to show Magnus exactly how he felt—other than nothing—, to rip off the maquillage on his arm. _Cuts, runes._

And then the thumping stopped, and it was like taking off on a runway, and he was thrown back into his head. He gasped softly, and Magnus still stood by the door, looking at him. _It's the thumping. Chloe was doing something, with the thumping, that was making him crazy__. Some sort of fuse or charge..._

Alec dizzily leaned his head against the wall. "I—sorry. Something came over me. I...I snapped, or something." He breathed in, and out, shakily, hands scratching again.

Magnus took a few steps forward, studying him. "It's alright. Everyone snaps."

"Not me. I'm not suppose to—to—to—" Tears welled up in Alec's eyes, the blue shimmering in the newly found sunlight, swimming in salt. _Stop stuttering_, he told himself, and he felt a crack. He hadn't cried yet, not yet, wasn't suppose to, and now...he couldn't stop. Waves of images crashed all over him, his parents, and _Will_, who wasn't even a part of this, but Magnus was...always did...talk about him...and—

Magnus strode to the bed, kneeing his way across the mattress, and held the crying boy, sobs wracking his body, crying everything away—the (his) insanity, the pressure, and the pain. And then he fell asleep, however long later, and Magnus still held him.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

By the time the sun was setting, Alec was awake. Embarrassed, ashamed, and completely awake. Magnus, oddly enough, had fallen asleep as well, holding him. He fell asleep, with someone _holding_ him, like he meant something to someone.

They'd been lying back against the headboard, Alec small and confused when he woke. Magnus' arms enveloped him; they were thin and vine-like, but strong, and it took him a while to unwind himself from them. Somehow he'd managed not to wake Magnus, and he left the room. Chloe was out then, rustling around in the kitchen. His phone was laying out on the coffee table.

Then he stood at just outside the door until she noticed him. She did, eventually, and apologized for the strange thumping that was occurring earlier (which as it turns out was fire burning without oxygen which didn't make any sense to him). She didn't question why he was here, or where Magnus was, or why they hadn't gone to school.

She then proceeded to stick a candy cane (_Isn't it September?)_ into his mouth and shove him in the bathroom to "wash up". He saw what she was talking about; bed hair, puffy eyes. Why did he start crying again? And _oh god_. The makeup had smudged on his arm. Tiny white lines began to poke through. He nearly had a panic attack, another one, until his eyes landed on something in the mirror. His clothes from yesterday, sitting on the edge of the shower, a long sleeve shirt among them.

Now he sat on a park bench near the edge of a small, secluded park close to Magnus' flat, mouth still tasting of peppermint, phone in hand, pressing _ignore_ on another one of Jace's panic calls. Apparently his mother was home early. Alec didn't have any care to pay attention to his mother right now. He would take Magnus' advice—loosely, though.

Magnus returned to him a few minutes later, balancing two cones of ice cream—chocolate and strawberry—in one hand, and surprisingly handed the pink one to Alec, who was a lot more colorful when it came to foods than fashion.

"So, were you serious? When you told me that you use to like Jace?" Magnus brought up, voice light and airy, once they started walking down a stranded path that led to an opening of trees. The path was made of cobble stone, ever so coincidentally.

Alec wrapped the napkin around the cone higher, and gingerly started to lick around it. The fruit flavor over the peppermint was harsh. He lowered his head, flushing. "Er, yeah. It was...kind of just a crush, but...you know. Jace is—"

"Jace." Magnus grinned. "And despite everything masochistic about him he still looks like a fucking model." Alec flushed deeper. Magnus was not at all trying to keep his mouth subtle around the ice cream; in fact, he bet that Magnus was doing it on purpose. "So I get where you're coming from."

"I'm over it, though. I mean, it was, a long time ago, but—"

"Doesn't he like that little red-head now? The feisty one?"

"Clary?" Alec confirmed. "I guess. Maybe."

"That's odd." Magnus commented. "He usually goes for the boob-y ones."

"I—" Alec trailed off awkwardly. "I wouldn't know much about that."

Magnus grinned again. "Of course not."

And then the sun hit the trees ever so slightly, and Magnus' eyes lit up, a fire of liquid ember and lime, viridian and apple, lava next to the greens and yellows of a peacock's feather. Alec saw the universe in those eyes—the blue glitter glinted purple, illustrious and bright—and he saw the starlight, just for a moment, while the sun finally sunk below the surface, and darkness overcame the grass, and night befell. It was breathtaking, not for the first time either. He always noticed little things like this—didn't pay attention to them, but he noticed, he _saw_ what he was always so desperately trying not to—trying to stop what had already started.

"You're staring again," Magnus teased, and the smile that he so often compared to a Cheshire was more actually that of a tiny sliver of the moon.

Alec tossed the ice cream into a passing trashcan, and stuffed his hands in his pockets, glancing away.

"Hey," Magnus keened, bumping him with his shoulder. "Stop hiding from me. I want to talk to you."

This time Magnus wanted him to smile, and he would have, but he couldn't.

"This is going to so fun," Magnus said, either ignoring or oblivious to the sudden change of moods. "We can tease him now, and he'll be—"

Alec stopped walking, eyes wide with realization—he was in a box, _stuck_ in this box with Magnus. There was an entire other _city_ beyond that, one that didn't know what was happening to him.

The path broke out just a little around a fountain. No water leaked from the top, and it was crumpled, sideways, the concrete on one half completely broken. "No."

"What?" Magnus turned around, looking at him oddly, confused. He frowned, and ice cream dripped from the cone onto his hand; he didn't move to wipe it away.

"I can't_ tell_ him. You can't either,"

Magnus hitched both of his eyebrows, if not confused before, now more than ever. Alec legitimately looked _scared _of the thought. "I thought that...that you were...We're talking, aren't we? I mean, you've told me that—"

"I'm telling you because I kind of _have to_. I don't need to tell Jace. He doesn't need to know." Alec felt a jolt of apprehension (and maybe even a little regret).

"Oh," Magnus said tautly, understanding what Alec was trying to tell him, in a sort of sadistic way. A bit of anger even, sparked in him. He took a step closer to Alec. "I get it. You don't need to tell Jace because you didn't _make out_ with Jace. Yeah, totally understandable. I get that you couldn't just tell him, and rely on him _like a brother_ and a friend."

Alec almost stumbled back. It was a slap in a face. "No. That's not what I—"

"Mean? Because basically, what you're saying is that you _never_ would have told me, if we hadn't kissed." In a fit of anger, his hand clenched around the cone, and it was crushed. He dropped it to the ground, breathing hard. "God damn it." he swore under his breath, shaking his hand off. "God _damn_ it."

"Magnus," Magnus turned his head away for a moment, blinking rapidly, and Alec couldn't see his face, but he heard the cracking of fingers and a number of hushed curses. "I'm sorry."

_Why do I keep breaking this? _Every time there was a spark of humor it was replaced with another pitchfork. Magnus had fixed them so many times, and not just now—other times too, when they were younger. It was time for him to fix something. To explain? Had he done that yet?

When Magnus turned back there was a smile plastered to his face, straining, oh so obviously trying not to lose it. "Oh no. You aren't apologizing." _He keeps doing that. _"I keep forgetting that this is new for you. I just need to..." Magnus let out a struggling breath, regaining his temper (which was typically this narrow).

"But...everything you just said, what you were saying, about me never—never—it was true, wasn't it? I wasn't going to..."

Magnus saw Alec face; it was a sort of tragedy.

"Stop that. Stop blaming yourself. Nothing is your fault. You didn't _do_ anything."

"But I did," Alec said, taking a step back. His eyes flew down to Magnus' lips. "I did do something. Kissing you. I—I did that—twice. _I_ kissed _you_, remember? We're here, because of me. But that—that—that—isn't the worst part is it? Because I liked it. It felt...good." He stammered. _Is it time to talk about us?_

Magnus was listening, at first. Then he just kind of...blurred it out. "You liked kissing me?"

Alec shook his head. "Unbelievable. That's all you got from that?" His nerves were pushed behind annoyance. "I'm trying to tell you—you won't listen to me!"

"Do it again." Magnus said, an unheard demand behind his words. Alec stared at him, shivering from the cold.

"I—what?"

"If you liked kissing me, do it again."

"_Excuse me_?" Alec exclaimed. "I'm trying to talk to you—which is something you've wanted me to do _all day_ by the way, and you want me to _kiss_ you?"

"You don't _like_ something," Magnus hissed. "And not want to do it again. You kissed me this morning. You had to have wanted to do it."

Alec stammered. "Well—that was—that was different. I wasn't...right—then."

_"You_ don't do something if you don't mean it. I know you, Alec. You don't do unnecessary things. If it doesn't have a purpose you _won't_ do it."

_That's it. That's all it takes. If he can kiss me completely aware of what he's doing and know the consequences then he'll know what he wants._

He was going to say more, but the words on his tongue were eaten—literally. There were sudden messy lips on his, those soft, unpracticed, and absolutely devouring lips sinking through his, shaping and conforming to the outline of his mouth. These were kisses out of anger, unsettled nerves looking for a release. The breath caught in his throat, and before Alec could pull away he moved a hand to his waist, and the other around his neck, pulling the boy closer. He fell forward as Alec fell back, and they held each other, minds blank like paper, crinkling and burning with heat.

"Three," Magnus said when Alec finally let go, a playful grin faulting on his lips.

"What?" Alec whispered, trying to regain coherence. The fire in him was stable but kindling.

"Three times, that you've kissed me now. All on your own."

Feeling daring, Alec bent up again, only for a second.

"Four."

Again.

"Five."

Again. And again. _Seveneightnine _until Alec was stumbling back, they were tripping over each other's feet, and his back finally hit something hard; a tree, from the scratchiness on his neck.

Alec's hands tangled themselves in Magnus' spiky hair, pulling them out of place and glitter rubbing off onto his skin. Their lips were pushed together with such a force that Alec was sure he had purple smeared on them.

_And there he was, thinking all by himself. Knowing just what was happening_.

Magnus took both of his hands to Alec's hips, working his leather-clad legs in between Alec's denim ones, so that they're bodies were pressed together fully. They—his thumbs—pressed into the skin of his lower stomach, filling each muscled notch there, and Alec shivered even more.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The streets of Manhattan were rarely as quiet as they were that night; the sky shone orange and green with lights but there was barely anyone out to see. Isabelle walked soundlessly through the veil of wet air, merely a silhouette against the brick buildings, in a dark trench coat and high boots.

_Where are all the damn taxis? _

After an hour more of wandering, she gave up and willed herself to walk the rest of the way home; she was tired, she was drunk, and nobody was answering their phones.

Isabelle had been invited to a party in the East Village, to some bar that she couldn't remember the name of. Alec wasn't there to stop her, Jace didn't care, so she went, and now after being forced drinks and being pushed around by guys she had escaped.

Into what?

Empty streets, foggy air, tripping and stumbling over herself...where was she even?

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She mumbled more curses and tried to get it out. It slipped right out of her hands; the screen cracked when it hit the payment. She didn't pick it up, too dazed, but tilted her head to look at it. The screen was frozen, and a name was stoic on the shattered glass. _Simon_. Simon had been calling her.

Something about the name shook her out of it, her drunken stage, sort of. The name rung a bell in her head. _Simon, Simon, Simon. _Who was Simon? She wished she weren't drunk.

_Oh well_. She continued to walk on, pulling the coat around her tighter. A taxi pulled up next to her and she sighed in relief. But then the door opened and someone climbed out, someone she recognized, and called her name.

_I know that person. Who is—_

The person, the man (most definitely a man, very tall, and very shiny), grabbed her arm, but before she could protest, she was out.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alec had walked home alone that night in the cold, and Magnus had caught a cab going the other direction with promises of seeing each other at Alicante the next morning; there was no word between the two of how they stood, friendship-wise, or how Alec would act around him in public, but hopefully there was also an unspoken truce of hope.

Now, less than an hour later he stood back at the Lightwood Mansion, handing a drunken brunette over to her brother, who was shirtless and smelt suspiciously of tequila.

"Thank you," Alec said, pushing Isabelle inside and shutting the door behind her, so that he and Magnus remained alone out on the porch. Magnus leaned against a pillar and crossed his arms. "for getting her. She comes home drunk a lot now and...well, I worry about her."

Magnus gave a small smile. "You're suppose to. She's your little sister, and while I may not have one, I know what it's like to worry."

"I just..." Alec put his weight on the door, tilting his head back and running his hands, scabbed and scarred, through his hair exasperated. "I don't know what to do with her! She won't listen to me, or Jace, and she won't stop the drinking. I thought that Meliorn guy was good for her, but she barely sees him anymore..."

"Alec," Magnus put a hand on his shoulder, slowly massaging the exposed skin. "Your overwhelmed right now. Breathe."

"Sorry, I...I'm a little drunk, I think. My mom left a bottle of something out after she went to bed."

Magnus scoffed, excepting as much. "I'm a reason to get drunk over?"

"Sure."

Magnus flinched and moved his hand away. "Hey..." he startled, his resolve crumbling a bit. "I know we'll be okay, alright? I'm sure Isabelle will be too..."

Alec's eyes caught his, and even though he claimed to have drank, the blue was clear, and more focused than they had been at all today.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked finally.

Alec opened his mouth to respond, the obvious lie coming out of his throat, but he swallowed it. Magnus saw through all his lies, and by the concern in his eyes...he didn't know. He didn't know if he would be okay. Too many kisses and too many break downs had un-functioned him.

"Ask me tomorrow." He said. He wanted to sleep (and hopefully not wake up). "Goodnight, Magnus."

* * *

_A/N: _**I don't know if I like this or not. **

**I suck. That's nearly two months now, right? *gaahhhhh* This is one of those chapters full of metaphorical shit that doesn't make any sense by the way.  
**

**To be totally honest I think I'm going to take a break from this. I had a plot—it fell apart. I've got two other Malec fics I want to start working on too, so...I don't know. I probably won't abandon this, but it'll be a while before I update. So...hiatus? Not officially, but don't expect an update soon.  
**

xxShar [_is thinking: It's...2013? By the way, sometime I'm going to rewrite chapters one and four. My god I hate those chapters._]


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